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ARABIAN  MEDICINE 


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The  Rival  Physicians 

[See  pp.  89—90  of  the  text") 


ARABIAN 
MEDICINE 


BY 

E.  G.  BROWNE 

The  Fitr^Patrick  Lectures 

delivered  at  the  College  of  'Physicians  in 

November  igig  and  November  igzo 


CAMBRIDGE 

AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
1962 


PUBLISHED   BY 

THE    SYNDICS    OF    THE    CAMBRIDGE    UNIVERSITY    PRESS 

Bentley  House,  200  Euston  Road,  London,  N.W.  i 

American  Branch:  32  East  57th  Street,  New  York  22,  N.Y. 

West  African  Office:  P.O.  Box  33,  Ibadan,  Nigeria 


R  IH 


y. 


■B7 


"JIO  1  a 


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First  printed  1921 
Keprinted       1962 


BOSTON  COLLii^GE  LIBRARY 
CHESTNUT  HILL,  MASS- 


AUG  2  6   1963 


First  printed  in  Great  Britain  at  the  University  Press,  Cambridge 
Reprinted  by  Bradford  &  Dickens,  Ltd.,  'London,  W.C,  i 


TO 

SIR  NORMAN  MOORE,  Bart.,  M.D. 

PRESIDENT    OF    THE    ROYAL    COLLEGE    OF    PHYSICIANS 

Iri  admiration  of  his  catholic  scholarships  in  gratitude  for  his 

inspiring  teachings  and  in  memory  of  three  fruitful  years  passed 

under  his  guidance  at  St  Bartholomew's  Hospital^ 

I  dedicate  this  book 


PREFACE 

In  the  course  of  the  last  ten  years  there  have  been  con- 
ferred upon  me  two  public  honours  which  have  given 
me  the  greatest  pleasure  and  satisfaction,  my  election 
in  191 1  as  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians, 
and  the  presentation,  on  the  occasion  of  my  fifty-ninth 
birthday  in  February,  1921,  of  a  complimentary  address 
(accompanied  by  very  beautiful  presents)  signed  by  a 
number  of  representative  Persians,  expressing  their  ap- 
preciation of  the  services  which,  they  were  kind  enough 
to  say,  I  had  rendered  to  their  language  and  literature. 
I  hope  that  this  little  book  may  be  regarded,  not  as 
a  discharge,  but  as  an  acknowledgment,  of  this  double 
debt.  In  it  I  have  sought  on  the  one  hand  to  indicate 
the  part  played  by  the  scholars  and  physicians  of  Isl^m, 
and  especially  of  Persia,  in  the  transmission  of  medical 
science  through  the  dark  ages  from  the  decline  of  the 
ancient  to  the  rise  of  the  modern  learning;  and  on  the 
other  to  suggest  to  lovers  of  Arabic  and  Persian  litera- 
ture in  the  wider  sense  that  hitherto  they  have  perhaps 
allowed  the  poets  and  euphuists  to  occupy  a  dispropor- 
tionate amount  of  their  attention,  to  the  exclusion  of 
the  scientific  Weltanschauung  which,  to  a  greater  degree 
in  the  medieval  East  than  in  the  modern  West,  forms 
the  background  of  these  lighter,  though  more  artistic, 
efforts.    Indeed,  as  I  have  attempted  to  show  in  these 


viii  Preface 

pages^  that  great  Persian  poem  the  Mathnawi  of 
Jaldlu'd-Din  Rumi  will  be  better  appreciated  by  one 
who  is  conversant  with  the  medical  literature  of  the 
period. 

Before  I  began  to  prepare  the  FitzPatrick  lectures 
now  offered  to  the  public  I  consulted  Sir  Clifford  Allbutt, 
the  Regius  Professor  of  Medicine  in  the  University  of 
Cambridge,  as  to  the  best  books  on  the  history  of  that 
science  which  the  Prophet  Muhammad,  in  a  tradition 
familiar  to  all  Muslims,  is  said  to  have  linked  in  import- 
ance with  Theology ^  Of  the  numerous  works  which 
Sir  Clifford  Allbutt  indicated,  and,  in  many  cases,  lent 
to  me  for  preliminary  study,  I  have  derived  more  profit 
from  none  than  from  Professor  Max  Neuburger  s  excel- 
lent Geschichte  der  Medizin  ( Stuttgart,  1 908 ).  Although 
the  section  of  this  work  dealing  with  Arabian  Medicine 
comprises  only  86  pages ^  it  is  extraordinarily  rich  in 
facts  and  accurate  in  details,  and  supplies  an  outline  of 
the  subject  which  is  susceptible  of  amplification  but  not 
of  correction. 

I  have  thought  it  better  to  publish  these  four  lectures 
in  the  form  in  which  they  were  originally  delivered  than 
to  recast  them  in  a  fresh  mould,  but  the  proofs  have  been 
read  by  several  of  my  friends  and  colleagues,  namely 
Dr  F.  H.  H.  Guillemard,  M.D.,  Dr  E.  H.  Minns,  Litt.D., 

^  See  pp.  87-88  infra. 

^  "  Science  is  twofold  :  Theology  and  Medicine." 

^  Vol.  I,  part  ii,  pp.  142-228  =  pp.  346-394  of  vol.  i  of  Ernest 
Playfair's  English  translation  (London,  19 10). 


Preface  ix 

Mirza  Muhammad  Khan  of  Qazwin,  and  Muhammad 
Iqbal,  to  all  of  whom  I  am  indebted  for  many  valuable 
corrections  and  suggestions.  I  am  also  deeply  indebted 
to  Professor  A.  A.  Bevan  and  the  Rev.  Professor  D.  S. 
Margoliouth  for  their  help  in  establishing  the  text  and 
emending  the  translation  of  the  clinical  case  recorded 
by  ar-R4zi  which  will  be  found  on  pp.  51-3  infra. 

It  has  afforded  me  particular  pleasure  to  be  allowed 
to  dedicate  this  little  volume  explicitly  to  Sir  Norman 
Moore,  as  representing  that  fine  tradition  of  learning, 
acumen  and  humanity  proper  in  all  countries  and  ages 
to  the  great  and  noble  profession  of  Medicine,  with 
which  living  tradition,  to  my  infinite  advantage,  I  was 
brought  in  contact  in  my  student  days  both  here  at 
Cambridge  and  in  St  Bartholomew's  Hospital;  and  im- 
plicitly to  those  other  great  teachers  in  these  two  famous 
schools  of  medical  learning  whose  methods  of  investi- 
gation and  exposition  I  have  endeavoured  to  apply  in 
other  fields  of  knowledge. 

EDWARD  G.  BROWNE. 
April  16,  1921. 


CONTENTS 

The  Rival  Physicians  Frontispiece 

(Photo,  by  Mr  R.  B.  Fleming  from  the  British  Museum  MS.  Or.  2265,  f.  26 <5.) 

PAGE 

LECTURE  I  I 

Meaning  of  the  term  "Arabian  Medicine" — Periods  of 
Arabian  and  Islamic  history — The  transmission  of  Greek 
learning — Syrian  and  Persian  contributions — The  I^tino- 
Barbari — Aptitude  of  Arabic  for  scientific  purposes. 

LECTURE  II  33 

Evolution  of  scientific  terminology  in  Arabic — Was  dissec- 
tion practised  by  the  Muslims? — Four  early  Persian  medical 
writers:  (i)  'All  ibn  Rabban;  (2)  Abu  Bakr  Muhammad  ibn 
Zakariyyaar-Razl;  (3)  'Ali  ibnu'l-'Abbas  al-Majusi;  (4)  Abd 
'All  Husayn  ibn  Sfna  (Avicenna). 

LECTURE  III  65 

Recapitulation — Arabian  popular  Medicine — The  translators 
from  Arabic  into  Latin — Practice  of  Medicine  in  the  time  of 
the  Crusades — Anecdotes  of  notable  cures  in  Arabic  and 
Persian  literature — Psychotherapeusis — Love  and  Melan- 
cholia— Persian  medical  works — Introduction  of  European 
Medicine  into  Muslim  lands. 

LECTURE  IV  97 

Contributions  of  the  Moors  of  Spain— The  School  of  Toledo 
— Persian  medical  literature  from  the  twelfth  to  the  four- 
teenth centuries — Biographical  works  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury—Muslim hospitals— Letters  of  "Rashld  the  Physician" 
— Outlines  of  Muslim  cosmogony,  physical  science  and  phy- 
siology— Conclusion. 

INDEX  127 


LECTURE  I 

Ihe  extent  of  my  subject  and  the  limitations  of  the 
time  at  my  disposal  forbid  me,  even  were  it  otherwise 
desirable,  to  introduce  into  these  lectures  any  unessential 
or  irrelevant  matter.  Yet  I  cannot  lose  this,  the  first 
opportunity  accorded  to  me  since  my  election  as  a  Fellow 
of  this  College,  of  expressing  publicly  my  deep  sense  of 
gratitude  for  an  honour  as  highly  appreciated  as  un- 
expected. I  am  well  aware  that  this  honour  was  con- 
ferred on  me  on  the  ground  (the  only  ground  on  which 
it  could  have  been  conferred  in  my  case)  that,  having 
regard  to  the  position  occupied  by  Arabian  Medicine 
in  the  history  of  our  profession,  it  was  desirable  that  there 
should  be  amongst  the  Fellows  of  the  College  one  who 
could  study  that  system  at  first  hand.  There  is  a  pro- 
verbial saying  amongst  the  Arabs  when  the  time  comes 
when  the  services  of  a  person  or  thing  provided  for 
a  particular  contingency  are  at  last  actually  required — 

^JijJJ  ':Jt  ,^jii-»i  b  ^ji-Jl  U — '' I  have  not  stored  thee  up, 

0  my  tear,  save  for  my  time  of  distress''-,  and  when  I 
was  invited  to  deliver  the  FitzPatrick  lectures  this  year, 

1  felt  that  this  proverb  was  applicable,  and  that,  even 
though  I  felt  myself  unworthy  of  this  fresh  honour  on 
the  part  of  the  College,  it  was  impossible  to  decline, 
especially  in  view  of  the  expressed  wish  of  the  President 
of  the  College,  Sir  Norman  Moore,  to  whose  inspiring 
teaching  in  my  far-off  student  days  I  owe  a  greater  debt 
of  gratitude  than  I  can  adequately  express.  I  can  only 
hope  that  at  the  conclusion  of  my  lectures  you  may  not 
apply  to  me  another  proverbial  saying  of  the  Arabs : 


2  Arabian  Medicine,   I 

aJLop  c>-X»I  d,j\^js.  J^\  ^>« — "A^    the  first    bout    his 
quarter-staff  was  broken'' 

When  we  speak  of  ''Arabian  Science"  or  "Arabian 
Medicine"  we  mean  that  body  of  scientific  or  medical 
doctrine  which  is  enshrined  in  books  written  in  the 
Arabic  language,  but  which  is  for  the  most  part  Greek 
in  its  origin,  though  with  Indian,  Persian  and  Syrian 
accretions,  and  only  in  a  very  small  degree  the  product 
of  the  Arabian  mind.  Its  importance,  as  has  long  been 
recognized,  lies  not  in  its  originality,  but  in  the  fact  that 
in  the  long  interval  which  separated  the  decay  of  Greek 
learning  from  the  Renascence  it  represented  the  most 
faithful  tradition  of  ancient  Wisdom,  and  was  during  the 
Dark  A^es  the  principal  source  from  which  Europe 
derived  such  philosophical  and  scientific  ideas  as  she 
possessed.  The  translation  of  the  Greek  books  into 
Arabic,  either  directly  or  through  intermediate  Syriac 
versions,  was  effected  for  the  most  part  under  the  en- 
lightened patronage  of  the  early  'Abbdsid  Caliphs  at 
Baghdad  between  the  middle  of  the  eighth  and  ninth 
centuries  of  our  era  by  skilful  and  painstaking  scholars 
who  were  for  the  most  part  neither  Arabs  nor  even 
Muhammadans,but  Syrians,  Hebrews  or  Persians  of  the 
Christian,  Jewish  or  Magian  faith.  Some  four  or  five 
centuries  later  European  seekers  after  knowledge,  cut  off 
from  the  original  Greek  sources,  betook  themselves  with 
ever  increasing  enthusiasm  to  this  Arabian  presentation 
of  the  ancient  learning,  and  rehabilitated  it  in  a  Latin 
dress;  and  for  the  first  century  after  the  discovery  of 
the  art  of  printing  the  Latin  renderings  of  Arabic 
philosophical,  scientific  and  medical  works  constituted 
a  considerable  proportion  of  the  output  of  the  European 
Press;  until  the  revival  of  a  direct  knowledge  of  the 


Recent  Revival  of  Interest  3 

Greek  originals  in  the  first  place,  and  the  inauguration 
of  a  fresh,  fruitful  and  first-hand  investigation  of  natural 
phenomena  in  the  second,  robbed  them  to  a  great  ex- 
tent of  their  prestige  and  their  utility,  and  changed  the 
excessive  veneration  in  which  they  had  hitherto  been 
held  into  an  equally  exaggerated  contempt. 

In  recent  years,  however,  when  the  interest  and 
importance  of  what  may  be  called  the  Embryology  of 
Science  has  obtained  recognition,  the  Arabian,  together 
with  other  ancient  and  obsolete  systems  of  Medicine, 
has  attracted  increasing  attention,  has  formed  the  sub- 
ject of  much  admirable  and  ingenious  research,  and  has 
already  produced  a  fairly  copious  literature.  The  chief 
Arabic  biographical  and  bibliographical  sources,  such  as 
th^Fikrist  or  "Index"  (377/987),  ^^-Qiiti  s  History  of  the 
Philosophers  (c.  624/1227),  Ibn  Abi  Usaybi'a's  Classes 
of  Physicians  (640/1 242),  the  great  bibliography  of  H^jji 
Khalifa  (-[-1068/1658)  and  the  like,  have  been  made 
available  in  excellent  editions,  while  their  most  essential 
contents  have  been  summarized  by  Wenrich,  Wiisten- 
feld,  Leclerc,  Brockelmann  and  others ;  the  general 
character  and  relations  of  Arabian  Medicine  have  been 
concisely  yet  adequately  described  by  Neuburger,  Pagel, 
Withington  and  Garrison,  to  name  only  a  few  of  the 
more  recent  writers  on  the  history  of  Medicine;  while 
amongst  more  specialized  investigations,  to  mention  one 
branch  only  of  the  subject,  the  admirable  works  of  Dr 
P.  de  Koning  and  Dr  Max  Simon  have  accurately  de- 
termined the  anatomical  terminology  of  the  Arabs  and 
its  equivalence  with  that  of  the  Greek  anatomists.  For 
the  pathological  terminology  much  more  remains  to  be 
done,  and  I  have  been  greatly  hampered  in  my  reading 
of  Arabic  medical  books  by  the  difficulty  of  determining 
the  exact  scientific  signification  of  many  words  used  in 


4  Arabian  Medicine.   I 

the  ordinary  literary  language  in  a  looser  and  less  pre- 
cise sense  than  that  which  they  evidently  bear  in  the 
technical  works  in  question.  Nor  is  much  help  to  be 
derived  from  the  medieval  translations  of  the  "  Latino- 
Barbari,"  who  too  often  simply  preserve  in  a  distorted 
form  the  Arabic  term  which  they  pretend  to  translate. 
Thus  the  first  section  of  the  first  discourse  of  the  first 
part  of  the  third  book  of  Avicenna's  great  QdnUn  is 
entitled  in  the  Latin  Version  Sermo  universalis  de  Soda, 
but  who,  not  having  the  original  before  him,  could 
divine  that  soda  stands  for  the  Arabic  cijb^,  the  ordinary 

Arabic  word  for  a  headache,  being  the  regularly  formed 
*'noun  of  pain"  from  the  verb  ^^  **to  split"? 

Now  the  history  of  Arabian  Medicine  can  only  be 
studied  in  connection  with  the  general  history  of  Isldm, 
which,  as  you  all  know,  first  began  to  assume  political 
significance  in  a.d.  622.  In  that  year  Muhammad, 
whose  real  miracle  was  that  he  inspired  the  warring 
tribes  of  Arabia  with  a  common  religious  and  social 
ideal,  welded  them  into  one  people,  sent  them  forth 
to  conquer  half  the  then  known  world,  and  founded  an 
Empire  destined  to  rival  and  replace  those  of  Caesar 
and  Chosroes,  transferred  the  scene  of  his  activities 
from  Mecca  to  al-Madina.  This  event  marks  the 
beginning  of  the  Muhammadan  era  known  as  the  hijra 
or  "Flight,"  from  which  1338  lunar  years  have  now 
elapsed.  About  the  middle  of  this  period,  viz.  in  the 
seventh  century  of  the  Flight  and  the  thirteenth  of  our 
era,  Arabian  or,  more  correctly  speaking,  Muham- 
madan Civilization  suffered  through  the  Mongol  or 
Tartar  invasion  an  injury  from  which  it  never  recovered, 
and  which  destroyed  for  ever  the  Caliphate,  the  nominal 
unity  of  the  Arabian  Empire,  and  the  pre-eminence  of 


The  Golden  Age  (a.d.  750-850)  5 

Baghdad  as  a  centre  of  learning.  Even  before  this, 
however,  partly  in  consequence  of  the  triumph  of  the 
narrower  and  more  orthodox  doctrines  of  the  Ash'ari 
over  the  more  liberal  Mu'tazila  school  of  theology, 
partly  in  consequence  of  the  gradual  displacement  of 
Arabian  and  Persian  by  Turkish  influences  in  the 
political  world,  science,  and  particularly  philosophy 
(which  was  so  closely  connected  with  medicine  that 
the  title  Hakim  was,  and  still  is,  indifferently  applied 
alike  to  the  metaphysician  and  the  physician),  had  ceased 
to  be  cultivated  with  the  same  enthusiasm  and  assiduity 
which  had  prevailed  in  "the  Golden  Prime  of  good 
Harunur-Rashid"  and  his  immediate  predecessors  and 
successors.  This  Golden  Age  of  Arabian  learning  cul- 
minated in  the  century  between  a.d.  750  and  850,  the 
century  succeeding  the  establishment  of  the  'Abbdsid 
Caliphate  with  its  metropolis  at  Baghdad.  Of  the  ten 
Caliphs  who  reigned  during  this  period  the  second, 
al-Mansur,  and  the  seventh,  al-Ma'mun  (whose  mother 
and  wife  were  both  Persians,  and  in  whose  reign  Persian 
influences,  already  powerful,  reached  their  culminating 
point),  were  conspicuous  for  their  intellectual  curiosity 
and  for  their  love  and  generous  patronage  of  learning, 
and  for  a  broad  tolerance  which  scandalized  the  orthodox 
and  led  one  of  them  to  change  the  Caliph's  title  of 
"Commander  of  the  Faithful"  [Amiru  l-Mu  minin)  into 
that  of  "Commander  of  the  Unbelievers"  {Amirul- 
Kdfirinf.  To  the  ancient  learning,  especially  that  of 
the  ancient  Greeks,  they  were  enthusiastically  attached  ; 
by  purchase,  conquest  or  exchange  they  possessed  them- 
selves of  countless  precious  manuscripts,  Greek  and 
other,  which  they  stored  in  the  Royal  Library  or 
Baytu  I'Hikmat  {''  House  of  Wisdom")  and  caused  to  be 
^  Al-Ya'qiibi,  ed.  Houtsma,  p.  546. 


BAM 


6  Arabian  Medicine,    I 

translated,  by  the  most  competent  scholars  they  could 
attract  to  their  court,  into  Arabic,  either  directly  from 
the  Greek,  or  through  the  intermediary  of  the  Syriac 
language.  In  the  Fihrist  or  Index  {ix.  of  Sciences),  an 
Arabic  work  composed  in  a.d.  987,  more  than  a  century 
after  what  I  have  spoken  of  as  the  ''Golden  Age,"  we 
have  at  once  a  mirror  of  the  learning  of  that  time,  and 
an  indicator  of  the  appalling  losses  which  it  afterwards 
sustained,  for  of  the  books  there  enumerated  it  would 
hardly  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  not  one  in  a 
thousand  now  exists  even  in  the  most  fragmentary  form. 
The  hateful  M  ongols — ' '  that  detestable  nation  of  Satan, ' ' 
as  old  Matthew  Paris  (writing  in  a.d.  1240)  calls  them, 
*' who  poured  forth  like  devils  from  Tartarus  so  that  they 
are  rightly  called  'Tartars'" — did  their  work  of  de- 
vastation only  too  thoroughly,  and  the  Muhammadan 
culture  which  survived  the  sack  of  Baghddd  and  the  ex- 
tinction of  the  Caliphate  in  a.d.  1258  was  but  a  shadow 
of  that  which  preceded  it. 

I  have  used  the  term  "  Muhammadan  Civilization," 
which,  for  reasons  to  be  given  shortly,  I  prefer  to 
"Arabian."  As  Latin  was  the  learned  language  of  me- 
dieval Europe,  so  was  (and  to  some  extent  is)  Arabic 
the  learned  language  of  the  whole  Muhammadan  world. 
There  is  no  objection  to  our  talking  of  "Arabian  Science" 
or  "Arabian  Medicine"  so  long  as  we  never  lose  sight 
of  the  fact  that  this  simply  means  the  body  of  scientific 
or  medical  doctrine  set  forth  in  the  Arabic  language,  for 
it  is  not  until  the  eleventh  century  of  our  era  that  we 
begin  to  meet  with  what  may  be  called  a  vernacular 
scientific  literature  in  Muhammadan  lands,  a  litera- 
ture typified  by  such  works  as  al-Biruni's  Tafhim  on 
astronomy   (eleventh   century)  and   the  Dhakhira  or 


Arabs  not  apt  for  Research  7 

** Thesaurus"  of  Medicine  composed  for  the  King  of 
Khwarazm  or  Khiva  in  the  twelfth  century. 

Now  this  scientific  Hterature  in  the  Arabic  language 
was  for  the  most  part  produced  by  Persians,  Syrians, 
Jews,  and  in  a  lesser  degree  by  Greeks,  but  only  to  a 
very  small  extent  by  genuine  Arabs.  Ibn  Khaldiin, 
who  composed  his  celebrated  Prolegomena  to  the  Study 
of  History — one  of  the  most  remarkable  books  in 
Arabic — about  a.d.  1400,  judges  his  countrymen  very 
harshly.  He  declares  that  every  country  conquered  by 
them  is  soon  ruined  \  that  they  are  incapable  of  evolving 
a  stable  and  orderly  system  of  government^  that  of 
all  people  in  the  world  they  are  the  least  capable  of 
ruling  a  kingdom ^  and  that  of  all  people  in  the  world 
they  have  the  least  aptitude  for  the  arts'*.  Goldziher, 
one  of  the  profoundest  Arabic  scholars  of  our  time  and 
himself  a  Jew,  rightly  says  that  Lagarde  goes  too  far 
when  he  asserts  that  *'of  the  Muhammadans  who  have 
achieved  anything  in  science  not  one  was  a  Semite"; 
yet  he  himself  is  constrained  to  admit  that  even  in  the 
religious  sciences  (exegesis  of  the  Qurdn,  tradition, 
jurisprudence,  and  the  like)  ''the  Arabian  element 
lagged  far  behind  the  non- Arabian  I"  Much  more  evi- 
dence of  this  might  be  adduced,  but  I  will  content  my- 
self with  one  instance  (hitherto,  I  believe,  unnoticed  in 
Europe)  of  the  mistrust  with  which  Arab  practitioners 
of  medicine  were  regarded  even  by  their  own  people. 
The  anecdote  in  question  is  related  by  that  most  learned 
but  discursive  writer  al-Jahiz  (so  called  on  account  of 
his  prominent  eyes)  in  his  "Book  of  Misers"  [Kitdbul- 
Bukhald^)  and  concerns  an  Arabian  physician  named 

^  De  Slane's  transl.,  i,  p.  310.  ^  Ibid.,  i,  p.  311. 

^  Ibid.,  ii,  p.  314.  ^  Ibid.,  ii,  p.  365. 

^  See  my  Lit.  Hist,  of  Persia,  i,  p.  260. 

^  Ed.  Van  Vloten,  pp.  109-110. 
2-2 


8  Arabian  Medicine.    I 

Asad  Ibn  Jdnf,  who,  even  in  a  year  of  pestilence,  and 
in  spite  of  his  recognized  learning,  skill  and  diligence, 
had  but  few  patients.  Being  asked  the  reason  of  this 
by  one  of  his  acquaintances  he  replied:  "In  the  first 
place  I  am  a  Muslim,  and  before  I  studied  medicine, 
nay,  before  ever  I  was  created,  the  people  held  the  view 
that  Muslims  are  not  successful  physicians.  Further 
my  name  is  Asad,  and  it  should  have  been  Salfba, 
Marail,  Yuhanna  or  Bira  \i.e.  a  Syriac  or  Aramaic 
name] ;  and  my  kunya  is  Abu'l-Hdrith,  and  it  should 
have  been  Abii  4sa,  Abu  Zakariyya  or  Abii  Ibrahim 
\i.e.  Christian  or  Jewish  instead  of  Muhammadan];  and 
I  wear  a  cloak  of  white  cotton,  and  it  should  have  been 
of  black  silk;  and  my  speech  is  Arabic,  and  it  should 
have  been  the  speech  of  the  people  of  Jundi-Shapur" 
[in  S.W.  Persia]. 

The  Arabs,  whose  scepticism  was  not  confined  to 
matters  of  religion,  avenged  themselves  to  some  extent 
by  disparaging  verses  about  doctors,  such  as  the 
following  on  the  death  of  Yuhanna  ibn  Masawayhi 
(the  Mesues  of  the  medieval  writers)  in  a.d.  857: 

'  ^^^Ac  j3  U^  ^1^  C$j^  O^  ^      '  L^^l    ^^^^    ^^^    v^a-i^>^    ^ 

"  Verily  the  physician,  with  his  physic  and  his  drugs, 
Cannot  avert  a  summons  that  hath  come. 
What  ails  the  physician  that  he  dies  of  the  disease 
Which  he  used  to  cure  in  time  gone  by  ? 

There  died  alike  he  who  administered  the  drug,  and  he  who  took  the  drug, 
And  he  who  imported  and  sold  the  drug,  and  he  who  bought  it." 

Similar  in  purport  are  the  following  verses  from  the 
popular  romance  of  'Antara,  the  old  Bedouin  hero : 


Earlier  Periods  of  Arabian  History  9 

"  The  physician  says  to  thee^  '•I  can  cure  thee,'' 
When  he  feels  thy  wrist  a?td  thy  arm; 
But  did  the  physician  know  a  cure  for  disease 

Which  would  ward  off  death,  he  would  not  himself  suffer  the  death 
agony:' 

Now  in  considering  the  genesis  and  development 
of  the  so-called  Arabian  Medicine,  of  which,  though  the 
main  outlines  are  clearly  determined,  many  details 
remain  to  be  filled  in,  we  may  most  conveniently  begin 
by  enquiring  what  was  the  state  of  medical  knowledge, 
or  ignorance,  amongst  the  ancient  Arabs  before  the 
driving  force  of  Islam  destroyed  their  secular  isolation, 
sent  them  out  to  conquer  half  the  then  known  world, 
and  brought  this  primitive  but  quick-witted  people  into 
close  contact  with  the  ancient  civilization  of  the  Greeks, 
Persians,  Egyptians,  Indians  and  others.  We  have  to 
distinguish  three  periods  antecedent  to  what  I  have  called 
the  Golden  Age,  viz. : 

( 1 )  The  Jdhiliyyat,  or  Pagan  Period,  preceding  the 
rise  and  speedy  triumph  of  Isldm,  which  was  fully 
accomplished  by  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century  of 
our  era. 

(2)  The  theocratic  period  of  the  Prophet  and  his 
immediate  successors,  the  Four  Orthodox  Caliphs,  which 
endured  in  all,  from  the  hiJ7^a  or  "Flight"  to  the 
assassination  of  *Ali,  less  than  forty  years  (a.d.  622- 
661)  and  which  had  its  centre  at  al-Madina,  the  ancient 
Yathrib  {'IddpLTTwa). 

(3)  The  period  of  the  Umayyad  Caliphs,  whose 
immense  Empire  stretched  from  Spain  to  Samarqand, 
and  whose  court  at  Damascus  speedily  began  to  show 


lo  Arabian  Medicine,    I 

a  luxury  and  wealth  hitherto  utterly  undreamed  of  by 
the  Arabs. 

For  our  present  purpose  it  is  hardly  necessary  to 
consider  separately  the  first  and  second  of  these  three 
periods,  those  namely  which  preceded  and  immediately 
followed  the  rise  of  Islam,  and  which,  however  widely 
they  differed  in  their  theological,  ethical  and  political 
aspects,  were,  as  regards  scientific  knowledge,  almost 
on  the  same  level.  The  life  of  the  old  pagan  Arabs  was 
rough  and  primitive  in  the  highest  degree — very  much 
what  the  life  of  the  Bedouin  of  Inner  Arabia  remains  to 
this  day ; — the  different  tribes  were  constantly  engaged 
in  savage  wars  fomented  by  interminable  vendettas; 
only  the  strong  and  resourceful  could  hold  their  own, 
and  for  the  weak  and  sick  there  was  little  chance  of 
survival.  On  the  other  hand  they  were  intelligent,  re- 
sourceful, courageous,  hardy,  chivalrous  in  many  respects, 
very  observant  of  all  natural  phenomena  which  came 
within  the  range  of  their  observation,  and  possessed  of 
a  language  of  great  wealth  and  virility  of  which  they 
were  inordinately  proud,  so  that  to  this  day,  when  they 
still  praise  God  ''who  created  the  Arabic  language  the 
best  of  all  languages,"  the  poems  of  that  far-off  time, 
describing  their  raids,  their  battles,  their  venturous 
journeys  and  their  love  affairs,  remain  the  standard  and 
model  of  the  chastest  and  most  classical  Arabic.  Most 
of  these  warring  tribes  acknowledged  no  authority  save 
that  of  their  own  chiefs  and  princes;  only  on  the  borders 
of  the  Persian  and  Roman  Empires  respectively,  in  the 
little  kingdoms  of  Hira  and  Ghassan,  did  the  elements 
of  civilization  and  science  exist. 

The  first  Arab  doctor  mentioned  by  those  careful 
biographers  of  philosophers  and  physicians,  al-Qifti  and 
Ibn  Abi  Usaybi'a,  is  al-Harith  ibn  Kalada,  an  elder 


Al'Hdrith  ibn  Kalada  ii 

•% 

contemporary  of  the  Prophet  Muhammad,  who  had 
completed  his  studies  at  the  great  Persian  medical  school 
of  Jundi-Shapur,  and  who  had  the  honour  of  being  con- 
sulted on  at  least  one  occasion  by  the  great  Persian 
King  Khusraw  Aniisharwan  (the  Kisra  of  the  Arabs  and 
Chosroes  of  the  Greeks)  who  harboured  and  protected 
the  Neo-Platonist  philosophers  driven  into  exile  by  the 
intolerance  of  the  Emperor  Justinian.  An  account  of 
this  interview,  authentic  or  otherwise,  fills  a  couple  of 
closely-printed  pages  of  Arabic  in  Ibn  Abi  Usaybi'a's 
Classes  of  Physicians,  and  the  substance  of  it  is  given 
by  Dr  Lucien  Leclerc  in  his  Histoire  de  la  Mddecine 
Arabe.  It  consists  almost  entirely  of  general  hygienic 
principles,  sound  enough  as  far  as  they  go,  but  of  little 
technical  interest.  A  certain  tragic  interest  attaches 
to  Nadr,  the  son  of  this  al-Hdrith\  who  like  his 
father  seems  to  have  had  some  skill  in  medicine  and 
a  Persian  education.  This  led  him  to  mock  at  the 
biblical  anecdotes  contained  in  the  Qurdn,  these  being, 
he  did  not  hesitate  to  say,  much  less  entertaining  and 
instructive  than  the  old  Persian  legends  about  Rustam 
and  Isfandiyar,  with  which  he  would  distract  the 
attention  and  divert  the  interest  of  the  Prophet's 
audience.  Muhammad  never  forgave  him  for  this,  and 
when  he  was  taken  prisoner  at  the  Battle  of  Badr — the 
first  notable  victory  of  the  Muslims  over  the  un- 
believers— he  caused  him  to  be  put  to  death. 

Of  the  Prophet's   own   ideas  about  medicine  and 

^  My  learned  friend  Mirza  Muhammad  of  Qazwin,  after  reading 
these  pages,  has  proved  to  me  by  many  arguments  and  citations  that 
Nadr  was  not,  as  Ibn  Abi  Usaybi'a  asserts,  a  son  of  al-Harith  ibn 
Kalada,  the  physician,  of  the  tribe  of  Thaqif,  but  of  al-Harith  ibn 
'Alqama  ibn  Kalada,  a  totally  difterent  person,  though  contem- 
porary. 


12  Arabian  Medicine.    I 

hygiene  (partly  derived,  very  likely,  from  the  above- 
mentioned  al-Harith)  we  can  form  a  fairly  accurate  idea 
from  the  very  full  and  carefully  authenticated  body  of 
traditions  of  his  sayings  and  doings  which,  after  the 
Qurdn,  forms  the  most  authoritative  basis  of  Muham- 
madan  doctrine.  These  traditions,  finally  collected  and 
arranged  during  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries  of  our 
era,  are  grouped  according  to  subjects,  each  subject 
constituting  a  "book"  {kitdb)  and  each  tradition  a 
"chapter"  (bdb).  If  we  take  the  Sahih  of  al-Bukhdri, 
the  most  celebrated  of  these  collections,  we  find  at  the 
beginning  of  the  fourth  volume  two  books  dealing  with 
medicine  and  the  sick,  containing  in  all  80  chapters. 
This  looks  promising ;  but  when  we  come  to  examine 
them  more  closely  we  find  that  only  a  small  proportion 
deal  with  medicine,  surgery  or  therapeutics  as  we 
understand  them,  and  that  the  majority  are  concerned 
with  such  matters  as  the  visitation,  encouragement  and 
spiritual  consolation  of  the  sick,  the  evil  eye,  magic, 
talismans,  amulets  and  protective  prayers  and  formulae. 
Although  the  Prophet  declares  that  for  every  malady 
wherewith  God  afflicts  mankind  He  has  appointed  a 
suitable  remedy,  he  subsequently  limits  the  principal 
methods  of  treatment  to  three,  the  administration  of 
honey,  cupping,  and  the  actual  cautery,  and  he  re- 
commends his  followers  to  avoid  or  make  sparing  use  of 
the  latter.  Camel's  milk,  fennel-flower  [Nigella  sativa), 
aloes,  antimony  (for  ophthalmia),  manna,  and,  as  a 
styptic,  the  ashes  of  burnt  matting,  are  amongst  the 
other  therapeutical  agents  mentioned.  The  diseases 
referred  to  include  headache  and  migraine,  ophthalmia, 
leprosy,  pleurisy,  pestilence  and  fever,  which  is  charac- 
terized as  "an  exhalation  of  Hell."  The  Prophet  advises 
his  followers  not  to  visit  a  country  where  pestilence 


The '' Prophet' s  Medicine  '  13 

is  raging,  but  not  to  flee  from  it  if  they  find  themselves 
there.  The  scanty  material  furnished  by  these  and  other 
traditions  (for  the  Qurdn,  apart  from  some  mention  of 
wounds  and  a  vague  popular  Embryology,  contains 
hardly  any  medical  matter)  has  been  more  or  less 
systematized  by  later  writers  as  what  is  termed  Tibbun- 
Nabi,  or  the  "Prophet's  Medicine,"  and  I  am  informed 
that  a  manual  so  entitled  is  still  one  of  the  first  books 
read  by  the  student  of  the  Old  Medicine  in  India,  along 
with  the  abridgment  of  Avicenna's  QdnUn  known  as 
the  Qdnt^ncha, 

The  ingenious  Ibn  Khalddn,  whom  we  have  already 
had  occasion  to  mention,  speaks  slightingly^  of  this 
** Prophetic  Medicine"  and  of  the  indigenous  Arab 
Medicine  which  it  summarized  and  of  which  it  formed 
part,  but  judiciously  adds  that  we  are  not  called  upon 
to  conform  to  its  rules,  since  "  the  Prophet's  mission 
was  to  make  known  to  us  the  prescriptions  of  the  Divine 
Law,  and  not  to  instruct  us  in  Medicine  and  the  common 
practices  of  ordinary  life."  A  propos  of  this  he  reminds 
us  that  on  one  occasion  the  Prophet  endeavoured  to 
forbid  the  artificial  fecundation  of  the  date-palm,  with 
such  disastrous  results  to  the  fruit-crop  that  he  with- 
drew his  prohibition  with  the  remark,  "  You  know 
better  than  I  do  what  concerns  your  worldly  interests." 
''One  is  then  under  no  obligation,"  continues  our  author, 
''to  believe  that  the  medical  prescriptions  handed  down 
even  in  authentic  traditions  have  been  transmitted  to 
us  as  rules  which  we  are  bound  to  observe ;  nothing  in 
these  traditions  indicates  that  this  is  the  case.  It  is 
however  true  that  if  one  likes  to  employ  these  remedies 
with  the  object  of  earning  the  Divine  Blessing,  and  if 
one  takes  them  with  sincere  faith,  one  may  derive  from 
^  De  Slane's  transl.,  iii,  pp.  163-4. 


14  Arabian  Medicine.    I 

them  great  advantage,  though  they  form  no  part  of 
Medicine  properly  so-called." 

I  hope  I  have  now  said  enough  to  show  how  wide 
was  the  difference  between  what  passed  for  medical 
knowledge  amongst  the  early  Arabs  of  the  pagan, 
prophetic  and  patriarchal  periods,  and  the  elaborate 
system  built  up  on  a  Hippocratic  and  Galenic  basis  at 
Baghdad  under  the  early  'Abbasid  Caliphs.  The  facts 
here  are  certain  and  the  data  ample.  More  difficult  is 
the  question  how  far  this  system  of  Medicine  was 
evolved  under  the  Umayyad  Caliphs  in  the  intermediate 
period  which  lay  between  the  middle  of  the  seventh  and 
the  middle  of  the  eighth  centuries  of  the  Christian  era. 
These  Umayyads,  though,  indeed,  purely  Arab,  were  by 
this  time  accustomed  to  the  settled  life  and  the  amenities 
of  civilization,  and  already  far  removed  from  the 
conquerors  of  Ctesiphon,  the  Sdsdnian  capital,  who 
mistook  camphor  for  salt  and  found  it  insipid  in  their 
food;  exchanged  gold  for  an  equal  amount  of  silver — 
"the  yellow  for  the  white,"  as  they  expressed  it; — and 
sold  an  incomparable  royal  jewel  for  a  thousand  pieces 
of  money,  because,  as  the  vendor  said  when  reproached 
for  selling  it  so  cheap,  he  knew  no  number  beyond 
a  thousand  to  ask  for.  Under  these  Umayyads  the 
Arabian  or  Islamic  Empire  attained  its  maximum  ex- 
tent, for  Spain,  one  of  their  chief  glories,  never  acknow- 
ledged the  'Abbdsid  rule.  In  Egypt  and  Persia,  as  well 
as  in  Syria  and  its  capital  Damascus,  where  they  held 
their  court,  they  were  in  immediate  contact  with  the  chief 
centres  of  ancient  learning.  How  far,  we  must  enquire, 
did  they  profit  by  the  opportunities  thus  afforded  them  ? 

In  the  development  of  their  theology,  as  von  Kremer 
has  shown\  they  were  almost  certainly  influenced  by 
^  Culturgeschichte  d.  Orients^  vol.  ii,  pp.  401  et  seqq. 


Early  Study  of  Alchemy  15 

John  of  Damascus,  entitled  Chrysorrhoas,  and  named 
in  Arabic  Mansur,  who  enjoyed  the  favour  of  the  first 
Umayyad  Caliph  Mu'dwiya.  The  first  impulse  given  to 
the  desire  of  the  Arabs  for  knowledge  of  the  wisdom  of 
the  Greeks  came  from  the  Umayyad  prince  Khalid  the 
son  of  Yazid  the  son  of  Mu'dwiya,  who  had  a  passion 
for  Alchemy.  According  to  the  Fihrisf^,  the  oldest  and 
best  existing  source  of  our  knowledge  on  these  matters, 
he  assembled  the  Greek  philosophers  in  Egypt  and 
commanded  them  to  translate  Greek  and  Egyptian  books 
on  this  subject  into  Arabic ;  and  these,  says  the  author 
of  the  Fihrist,  **  were  the  first  translations  made  in 
Isldm  from  one  language  to  another."  With  this  prince 
is  associated  the  celebrated  Arabian  alchemist  Jabir  ibn 
Hayydn,  famous  in  medieval  Europe  under  the  name 
of  Geber.  Many,  if  not  most,  of  the  Latin  books  which 
passed  under  his  name  in  the  Middle  Ages  are  spurious, 
being  the  original  productions  of  European  investigators 
who  sought  by  the  prestige  attaching  to  his  name  to 
give  authority  and  currency  to  their  own  writings.  The 
Arabic  originals  of  his  works  are  rare,  and  the  only 
serious  study  of  them  which  I  have  met  with  is  contained 
in  the  third  volume  of  Berthelot's  admirable  Histoire 
de  la  Chimie  au  Moyen  Age,  where  the  text  and  French 
translation  of  one  of  his  genuine  treatises  are  given. 
Berthelot  points  out,  what,  indeed,  has  long  been 
recognized,  that  though  the  chief  pursuit  of  the  old 
alchemists  was  the  Philosopher's  Stone  and  the  Elixir 
of  Life,  they  nevertheless  made  many  real  and  valuable 
discoveries.  How  many  of  these  we  owe  to  the  Arabs 
is  apparent  in  such  words  as  alcohol,  alembic  and  the 
like,  still  current  amongst  us.  It  is  indeed  generally 
recognized  that  it  was  in  the  domains  of  chemistry  and 

^  p.  242. 


1 6  Arabian  Medicine.    I 

materia  medica  that  the  Arabs  added  most  to  the  body 
of  scientific  doctrine  which  they  inherited  from  the 
Greeks. 

Of  medicine  proper  we  find  Httle  trace  amongst  the 
Arabs  at  this  period,  only  three  or  four  physicians  being 
specifically  mentioned,  mostly  Christians,  and  probably 
non-Arabs.  One  of  them  was  Ibn  Uthdl,  physician  to 
Mu'dwiya,  the  first  Umayyad  Caliph,  who  was  murdered 
by  a  man  of  the  tribe  of  Makhzum  on  suspicion  of  having, 
at  the  instigation  of  the  Caliph,  poisoned  an  obnoxious 
relative  named  'Abdu'r-Rahmdn.  Another,  Abu'l- 
Hakam,  also  a  Christian,  lived  to  be  a  centenarian,  as 
did  also  his  son  Hakam.  In  the  case  of  the  latter  we 
have  a  fairly  detailed  account  of  his  successful  treatment 
of  a  case  of  severe  arterial  haemorrhage  caused  by  an 
unskilful  surgeon-barber.  Neither  of  these  men  seems 
to  have  written  anything,  but  to  'fsd  the  son  of  Hakam 
is  ascribed  a  large  Kunndsh,  or  treatise  on  the  Art  of 
Medicine,  of  which  no  fragment  has  been  preserved. 
Mention  is  also  made  by  the  Arab  biographers  of  a  cer- 
tain Theodosius  or  Theodorus\  evidently  a  Greek,  who 
was  physician  to  the  cruel  but  capable  Hajjdj  ibn  Yusuf, 
by  whom  he  was  held  in  high  honour  and  esteem.  Some 
of  his  aphorisms  are  preserved,  but  none  of  the  three 
or  four  works  ascribed  to  him.  The  short  list  of  these 
medical  practitioners  of  the  Umayyad  period  is  closed 
by  a  Bedouin  woman  named  Zaynab,  who  treated  cases 
of  ophthalmia.  That  somewhat  more  attention  began 
to  be  paid  to  public  health  is  indicated  by  the  fact  re- 
corded by  the  historian  Tabarf '  that  the  Caliph  al-Walid 
in  the  year  88/707  segregated  the  lepers,  while  as- 

1  Ibn  Abi  Usaybi'a  (vol.  i,  pp.  121-123)  gives  the  name  in  the 
form  of  Thiyadhdq  ( J^iU5). 

'^  Secunda  Series,  vol.  ii,  p.  11 96. 


John  Philoponus  1 7 

signing  to  them  an  adequate  supply  of  food.  Amongst 
the  Bedouin  the  recourse  was  still  to  the  old  charms 
and  incantations,  often  accompanied  by  the  application 
to  the  patient  of  the  operator's  saliva.  An  instance  of 
this  is  recorded  in  connection  with  the  poet  Jarfr\  who 
gave  his  daughter  Umm  Ghayldn  in  marriage  to  a  ma- 
gician named  Ablaq  who  had  cured  him  in  this  fashion 
of  erysipelas.  The  practice  of  medicine  amongst  the 
genuine  Arabs  of  Arabia,  both  Bedouin  and  dwellers  in 
towns,  at  the  present  day  is  succinctly  described  by 
Zwemer  in  his  book  Arabia,  the  Cradle  of  IsldTri^',  and 
his  description,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  fairly  represents 
its  condition  at  the  remote  period  of  which  we  are  now 
speaking. 

One  important  question  demands  consideration  be- 
fore we  pass  on  to  the  great  revival  of  learning  under 
the  early  'Abbdsid  Caliphs  at  Baghddd  in  the  eighth 
and  ninth  centuries  of  our  era.  Leclerc  in  his  Histoire 
de  la  MMecine  Arabe  maintains  that  already,  a  century 
earlier,  when  the  Arabs  conquered  Egypt,  the  process 
of  assimilating  Greek  learning  began.  In  this  process  he 
assigns  ^n  important  part  to  a  certain  Yahyd  an-Nahwf, 
or  ''John  the  Grammarian,"  who  enjoyed  high  favour 
with  'Amr  ibnu'l-'As,  the  conqueror  and  first  Muslim 
governor  of  Egypt,  and  whom  he  identifies  with  John 
Rhiloponus  the  commentator  of  Aristotle.  This  Yahyi, 
of  whom  the  fullest  notice  occurs  in  al-Qifti's  "History 
of  the  Philosophers  "  (  Td rikhu  l-Hukamdf ,  was  a 
Jacobite  bishop  at  Alexandria,  who  subsequently  re- 
pudiated the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  and  consequently 
attracted  the  favourable  notice  of  the  Muslims,  to  whose 
strict  monotheism  this  doctrine  is  particularly  obnoxious. 

^  Sevan's  ed.  of  the  Naqd'id,  p.  840. 

2  pp.  280-4.  3  £(j  Lippert,  pp.  354-7. 


1 8  Arabian  Medicine.   I 

He  it  was,  according  to  the  well-known  story,  now 
generally  discredited  by  Orientalists,  who  was  the  ulti- 
mate though  innocent  cause  of  the  alleged  burning  of 
the  books  in  the  great  library  at  Alexandria  by  the 
Muslims,  a  story  which  Leclerc,  in  spite  of  his  strong 
pro-Arab  and  pro-Muhammadan  sympathies,  oddly 
enough  accepts  as  a  historical  fact'.  This  Yahya,  at 
any  rate,  was  a  great  Greek  scholar,  and  is  said  by  al- 
Qifti  to  have  mentioned  in  one  of  his  works  the  year 
343  of  Diocletian  (reckoned  from  a.d.  284)  as  the  current 
year  in  which  he  wrote.  This  would  agree  very  well 
with  his  presence  in  Egypt  at  the  time  of  the  Arab 
conquest  in  a.d.  640,  but  would  prove  that  he  was  not 
identical  with  John  Philoponus,  who,  according  to  a 
note  added  by  Professor  Bury  to  Gibbon's  narrative  of 
the  event  in  question,  flourished  not  in  the  seventh  but 
in  the  early  part  of  the  sixth  century  after  Christ'.  The 
precious  library  of  Alexandria  had,  as  Gibbon  observes, 
been  pretty  thoroughly  destroyed  by  Christian  fanatics 
nearly  three  centuries  before  the  Muslims  over-ran 
Egypt. 

The  questions  of  the  fate  of  the  Alexandrian  library 
and  the  identity  of  the  two  Johns  or  Yahyds  are,  how- 
ever, quite  subordinate  to  the  much  larger  and  more 
important  question  of  the  state  of  learning  in  Egypt  at 
the  time  of  the  Arab  conquest.  Leclerc's  view  is  that 
the  School  of  Medicine,  once  so  famous,  long  outlived 
that  of  Philosophy,  and  continued,  even  though  much 
fallen  from  its  ancient  splendour,  until  the  time  of  the 

^  The  arguments  against  the  truth  of  this  story  are  well  set  forth 
by  L.  Krehl  ( Uber  die  Sage  von  der  Verbrennung  der  Alexandrinischen 
Bibliothek  durch  die  Araber)  in  the  Acts  of  the  Fourth  International 
Congress  of  Orientalists  (Florence,  1880). 

-  Vol.  V  of  Bury 's  ed,  p.  452  ad  calc. 


The  School  of  Jundi-ShdpiZr  1 9 

Arab  conquest.  This  is  a  difficult  point  to  decide;  but 
Dr  Wallis  Budge,  whose  opinion  I  sought,  definitely 
took  the  view  that  the  Egyptian  writings  of  this  period 
at  any  rate,  so  far  as  they  touched  on  these  topics  at 
all,  showed  little  or  no  trace  of  medical  science,  Greek 
or  other.  At  the  same  time  we  must  give  due  weight 
to  the  well-authenticated  Arabian  tradition  as  to  the 
translation  of  Greek  works  on  Alchemy  for  the  Umayyad 
prince  Khdlid  ibn  Yazid  in  Egypt,  and  must  admit  the 
possibility,  if  not  the  probability,  that  these  translations 
included  other  subjects,  philosophical,  medical  and  the 
like,  besides  that  which  constituted  the  aforesaid  prince's 
special  hobby. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  it  was  in  the  middle  of  the  eighth 
century  of  our  era  and  through  the  then  newly-founded 
city  of  Baghdad  that  the  great  stream  of  Greek  and 
other  ancient  learning  began  to  pour  into  the  Muham- 
madan  world  and  to  reclothe  itself  in  an  Arabian  dress. 
And  so  far  as  Medicine  is  concerned,  the  tradition  of 
the  old  Sasanian  school  of  Jundi-Shdpur  was  pre- 
dominant. Of  this  once  celebrated  school,  now  long  a 
mere  name,  with  difficulty  located  by  modern  travellers 
and  scholars  on  the  site  of  the  hamlet  of  Shdh-abad^  in 
the  province  of  Khuzistdn  in  S.W.  Persia,  a  brief  ac- 
count must  now  be  given. 

The  city  owed  its  foundation  to  the  Sdsanian 
monarch  Shdpiir  I,  the  son  and  successor  of  Ardashir 
Bdbakdn  who  founded  this  great  dynasty  in  the  third 
century  after  Christ,  and  restored,  after  five  centuries 
and  a  half  of  eclipse,  the  ancient  glories  of  Achaemenian 

^  See  Rawlinson's  Notes  on  a  March  from  Zohdb  to  Khuzistdn  in 
the  Journal  of  the  Royal  Geographical  Society,  vol.  ix,  pp.  71-2,  and 
Layard's  remarks  in  vol.  xvi,  p.  86  of  the  same  Journal. 


20  Arabian  Medicine.    I 

Persia.    Shipiir,  after  he  had  defeated  and  taken  captive 
the  Emperor  Valerian,  and  sacked  the  famous  city  of 
Antioch,  built,  at  the  place  called  in  Syriac  Beth  Lipit, 
a  town  which  he  named    Veh-az-Andev-i-ShdpUr,  or 
*'  Shipur's  '  Better  than  Antioch,' "  a  name  which  was 
gradually  converted  into  GundS  SkdpT^r  or  in  Arabic 
fundi  SdbicrK    Another  ''Better  than  Antioch"  was 
founded  in  the  sixth  century  of  our  era  by  Khusraw  Anu- 
sharwdn,  the  Chosroes  of  the  Greeks  and  Kisrd  of  the 
Arabs,  which,  to  distinguish  it  from  the  first,  was  called 
Veh-az-Andev-i-Khusraw.  This  latter  town,  by  a  practice 
which  prevailed  in  Persia  even  until  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, was  chiefly  populated  by  the  deported  citizens — 
especially  craftsmen  and  artisans — of  the  foreign  town 
after  which  it  was  named;  and  it  seems  likely  that  Jundi- 
Shapiir  also  received  a  considerable  number  of  Greek 
settlers,  for  the  Greek  translations  of  Shdpur's  Pahlawi 
inscriptions  carved  on  the  rocks  at  Istakhr  in  Fdrs 
prove  that  Greek  labour  was  available  at  this  time  even 
in  the  interior  of  Persia.     Forty  or  fifty  years  later,  in 
the  early  part  of  the  fourth  century,  in  the  reign  of  the 
second  Shcipilr,  the  city  had  become  a  royal  residence, 
and  it  was  there  that  Mani  or  Manes,  the  founder  of  the 
Manichaean  heresy,  was  put  to  death,  and  his  skin, 
stuffed  with  straw,  suspended  from  one  of  the  city  gates, 
known  long  afterwards,  even  in  Muhammadan  times, 
as   the   "  Gate  of   Manes."    There    also,   as    appears 
probable,  Shapur  II  established  the  Greek  physician 
Theodosius  or  Theodorus  whom  he  summoned  to  attend 
him,  and  whose  system  of  medicine  is  mentioned  in  the 
Fihrisf'  as  one  of  the  Persian  books  on  Medicine  after- 

^  See  Th.  Noldeke's  Gesch.  d.  Perser  u.  Arab,  zur  Zeit  der  Sasa- 
niden  (Leyden,  1879),  PP-  40-42. 
'  P-  303- 


The  School  of  Jundi-ShdpUr  2 1 

wards  translated  into  Arabic  and  preserved  at  any  rate 
until  the  tenth  century  of  our  era.  This  physician,  who 
was  a  Christian,  obtained  such  honour  and  consideration 
in  Persia  that  Shapur  caused  a  church  to  be  built  for 
him  and  at  his  request  set  free  a  number  of  his  captive 
countrymen. 

The  great  development  of  the  school  of  Jundi-Shapiir 
was,  however,  the  unforeseen  and  unintended  result  of 
that  Byzantine  intolerance  which  in  the  fifth  century 
of  our  era  drove  the  Nestorians  from  their  school  at 
Edessa  and  forced  them  to  seek  refuge  in  Persian  terri- 
tory. In  the  following  century  the  enlightened  and 
wisdom-loving  Khusraw  Anusharwdn,  the  protector  of 
theexiled  Neo-Platonist  philosophers^  senthis  physician 
Burzuya  to  India,  who,  together  with  the  game  of  chess 
and  the  celebrated  Book  of  Kalila  and  Dimna,  brought 
back  Indian  works  on  medicine  and  also,  apparently, 
Indian  physicians  to  Persia. 

The  school  of  Jundi-Shipur  was,  then,  at  the  time 
of  the  Prophet  Muhammad's  birth,  at  the  height  of  its 
glory.  There  converged  Greek  and  Oriental  learning, 
the  former  transmitted  in  part  directly  through  Greek 
scholars,  but  for  the  most  part  through  the  industrious 
and  assimilative  Syrians,  who  made  up  in  diligence 
what  they  lacked  in  originality.  Sergius  of  Ra'su'l-'Ayn, 
who  flourished  a  little  before  this  time^  was  one  of  those 
who  translated  Hippocrates  and  Galen  into  Syriac.  Of 
this  intermediate  Syriac  medical  literature,  from  which 
many,  perhaps  most,  of  the  Arabic  translations  of  the 
eighth  and  ninth  centuries  were  made,  not  much  survives, 
but  M.  H.  Pognon's  edition  and  French  translation  of 
a  Syriac  version  of  the  Aphorisms^  of  Hippocrates,  and 

^  About  A.D.  531.       ''He  died  at  Constantinople  about  a.d.  536. 
^  Une  Version  Syriaque  des  Aphorismes  (THippocrate^  Leipzig,  1903. 


BAM 


22  Arabian  Medicine,   I 

Dr  Wallls  Budge's  Syriac  Book  of  Medicines^,  enable  us 
to  form  some  idea  of  its  quality.  To  the  Syrians,  what- 
ever their  defects,  and  especially  to  the  Nestorians, 
Asia  owes  much,  and  the  written  characters  of  the 
Mongol,  Manchu,  Uyghiir  and  many  other  peoples  in 
the  western  half  of  Asia  testify  to  the  literary  influence 
of  the  Aramaic  peoples. 

But  though  the  medical  teaching  of  Jundi-Shapiir 
was  in  the  main  Greek,  there  was  no  doubt  an  under- 
lying Persian  element,  especially  in  Pharmacology, 
where  the  Arabic  nomenclature  plainly  reveals  in  many 
cases  Persian  origins.  Unfortunately  the  two  most 
glorious  periods  of  pre- Islamic  Persia,  the  Achaemenian 
(b.c.  550-330)  and  the  Sdsanian  (a.d.  226-640)  both 
terminated  in  a  disastrous  foreign  invasion,  Greek  in 
the  first  case,  Arab  in  the  second,  which  involved  the 
wholesale  destruction  of  the  indigenous  learning  and 
literature,  so  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  reconstitute 
more  than  the  main  outlines  of  these  two  ancient 
civilizations.  Yet  the  Avesta,  the  sacred  book  of  the 
Zoroastrians,  speaks  of  three  classes  of  healers,  by 
prayers  and  religious  observances,  by  diet  and  drugs, 
and  by  instruments;  in  other  words  priests,  physicians 
and  surgeons.  As  regards  the  latter,  one  curious  passage 
in  the  Vendiddd  ordains  that  the  tyro  must  operate 
successfully  on  three  unbelievers  before  he  may  attempt 
an  operation  on  one  of  the  ''good  Mazdayasnian 
religion."  And,  of  course,  Greek  physicians,  of  whom 
Ctesias  is  the  best  known,  besides  an  occasional  Egyp- 
tian, were  to  be  found  at  the  Achaemenian  court  before 
the  time  of  Alexander  of  Macedon. 

The  medical  school  of  Jundi-Shdpur  seems  to  have 
been  little  affected  by  the  Arab  invasion  and  conquest 
^  Two  vols.,  text  and  translation,  19 13. 


The  Bukkt'YiskH'  Family  23 

of  the  seventh  century  of  our  era,  but  it  was  not  till  the 
latter  half  of  the  eighth  century,  when  Baghdad  became 
the  metropolis  of  Islam,  that  its  influence  began  to  be 
widely  exerted  on  the  Muslims.  It  was  in  the  year 
A.D.  765'  that  the  second  'Abbasid  Caliph  al-Mansur, 
being  afflicted  with  an  illness  which  baffled  his  medical 
advisers,  summoned  to  attend  him  Jiirjis  the  son  of 
Bukht-Yishu'(a  half- Persian,  half-Syriac  name,  meaning 
''Jesus  hath  delivered  ")^  the  chief  physician  of  the  great 
hospital  of  Jundi-Sh^piir.  Four  years  later  Jurjis  fell 
ill  and  craved  permission  to  return  home,  to  see  his 
family  and  children,  and,  should  he  die,  to  be  buried 
with  his  fathers.  The  Caliph  invited  him  to  embrace 
the  religion  of  Isldm,  but  Jurjis  replied  that  he  preferred 
to  be  with  his  fathers,  whether  in  heaven  or  hell.  Thereat 
the  Caliph  laughed  and  said,  ''Since  I  saw  thee  I  have 
found  relief  from  the  maladies  to  which  I  had  been  ac- 
customed," and  he  dismissed  him  with  a  gift  of  10,000 
dindrs,  and  sent  with  him  on  his  journey  an  attendant 
who  should  convey  him,  living  or  dead,  to  Jundi-Shapur, 
the  "Ci  vitas  Hippocratica"  which  he  loved  so  well.  Jurjis 
on  his  part  promised  to  send  to  Baghdad  to  replace  him 
one  of  his  pupils  named  'Isa  ibn  Shahld,  but  declined  to 
send  his  son,  Bukht-Yishii'  the  second,  on  the  ground 
that  he  could  not  be  spared  from  the  Bimdristdn,  or 
hospital,  of  Jundi-Sh4pur. 

For  six  generations  and  over  250  years  the  Bukht- 
Yishu'  family  remained  pre-eminent  in  medicine,  the 
last  (Jibrail  son  of  'Ubaydu'lldh  son  of  Bukht-Yishu' 
son  of  Jibra'il  son  of  Bukht-Yishu'  son  of  Jurjis  son  of 

1  Al-Qifti's  TaWikhuU-Hukamd,  p.  158. 

^  The  explanation  of  these  old  Persian  names  beginning  or  ending 
with  -bukht  we  owe  to  Professor  Th.  Noldeke,  Gesch.  d.  Artakhshir- 
i-Pdpakdn,  p.  49,  n.  41 
3-2 


24  Arabian  Medicine.   I 

Jibrd'il),  who  died  on  April  lo,  1006,  being  as  eminent 
and  as  highly  honoured  by  the  rulers  and  nobles  of  his 
time  as  the  first.  That  a  certain  exclusiveness  and  un- 
willingness to  impart  their  knowledge  to  strangers  charac- 
terized the  physicians  of  Jundi-Shdpur  may  be  inferred 
from  the  treatment  received  at  the  beginning  of  his 
career  by  the  celebrated  translator  of  Greek  medical 
works  into  Arabic,  Hunayn  ibn  Ishaq,  known  to  medi- 
eval Europe  as  *'Johannitius."  He  was  a  Christian  of 
Hira  with  a  great  passion  for  knowledge,  and  acted  as 
dispenser  to  Yuhannd  ibn  Mdsawayh  (the  ^'Messues"  of 
the  Latino- Barbari),  whose  lectures  he  also  followed. 
But  he  was  prone  to  ask  too  many  troublesome  questions, 
and  one  day  his  master,  losing  patience,  exclaimed, 
"  What  have  the  people  of  Hira  to  do  with  medicine  } 
Go  and  change  money  in  the  streets!"  and  drove  him 
forth  in  tears;  "for,"  says  al-Qifti\  "these  people  of 
Jundi-Shdpiir  used  to  believe  that  they  only  were  worthy 
of  this  science,  and  would  not  suffer  it  to  go  forth  from 
themselves,  their  children  and  their  kin."  But  Hunayn, 
more  resolved  than  ever  on  pursuing  knowledge  to  its 
source,  went  away  for  several  years  to  learn  Greek. 
During  this  period  one  of  his  former  acquaintances, 
Yusuf  the  physician,  one  day  saw  a  man  with  long  hair 
and  undipped  beard  and  moustaches  reciting  Homer 
in  the  street,  and,  in  spite  of  his  changed  appearance, 
recognized  his  voice  as  that  of  Hunayn.  He,  being 
questioned,  admitted  his  identity,  but  enjoined  silence 
on  Yusuf,  saying  that  he  had  sworn  not  to  continue  his 
medical  studies  until  he  had  perfected  himself  in  know- 
ledge of  the  Greek  language.  When  he  finally  returned, 
Jibra'il  ibn  Bukht-Yishu',  to  whom  he  attached  himself, 
was  delighted  with  his  Greek  scholarship  and  declared 

^  Op.  dt.^  p.  174. 


Hunayn  ibn  Ishdq  i^^Johannitius')  25 

him  to  be  a  miracle  of  learning,  and  Ibn  Mdsawayh, 
who  had  formerly  driven  him  out  with  contumely,  sought 
Yusuf's  good  offices  to  effect  a  reconciliation  with  him. 
Later  he  gained  high  favour  with  the  Caliph,  who,  how- 
ever, was  minded  first  to  prove  his  professional  honour 
by  a  hard  test,  for  he  bade  him  concoct  a  poison  for 
one  of  his  enemies,  offering  him  rich  rewards  if  he 
would  do  so,  but  severe  punishment — imprisonment  or 
death — if  he  refused.  He  refused  and  was  imprisoned 
for  a  year,  when  he  was  again  brought  before  the 
Caliph  and  bidden  to  choose  again  between  compliance 
and  a  rich  reward,  or  the  sword  of  the  executioner.  "  I 
have  already  told  the  Commander  of  the  Faithful," 
replied  Hunayn,  **that  I  have  skill  only  in  what  is  bene- 
ficial, and  have  studied  naught  else";  and  being  again 
threatened  with  instant  death  he  added,  "I  have  a  Lord 
who  will  give  me  my  right  to-morrow  in  the  Supreme 
Uprising,  so  if  the  Caliph  would  injure  his  own  soul,  let 
him  do  so."  Then  the  Caliph  smiled  and  declared  that 
he  had  only  desired  to  assure  himself  of  Hunayn's 
probity  before  yielding  him  implicit  confidence.  So  the 
incident  ended  satisfactorily,  but  it  serves  to  show  that 
the  position  of  Court  Physician  at  Baghdad  in  early 
'Abbdsid  times  was  sometimes  a  trying  one ;  a  fact 
brought  out  in  the  well-known  story  of  the  physician 
Dubdn  and  King  Yundn  (which,  however,  had  a  much 
more  tragic  ending)  in  the  Arabian  Nights^, 

Hunayn  was  not  only  the  most  celebrated  but  the 
most  productive  of  these  translators.  Of  the  ten  Hippo- 
cratic  writings  mentioned  by  the  author  of  the  Fihrist 
as  existing  in  Arabic  translations  in  his  time,  seven  were 
his  work  and  three  the  work  of  his  pupil  'Isd  ibn  Yahyd, 
while  the^'sixteen  books"  of  Galen  were  all  translated  by 
^  Lane's  translation  (London,  1859),  vol.  i,  pp.  83-6. 


26  Arabian  Medicine.    I 

him  or  his  pupil  Hubaysh.  Generally,  as  we  learn  from 
the  Fihrist^,  Hunayn  translated  the  Greek  into  Syriac, 
while  Hubaysh  translated  from  Syriac  into  Arabic,  the 
Arabic  version  being  then  revised  by  Hunayn,  who, 
however,  sometimes  translated  directly  from  Greek  into 
Arabic.  All  three  languages  were  known  to  most  of 
these  translators,  and  it  is  probable,  as  Leclerc  suggests, 
that  whether  the  translation  was  made  into  Syriac  or 
Arabic  depended  on  whether  it  was  primarily  designed 
for  Christian  or  Muslim  readers.  At  the  present  day 
comparatively  few  of  these  Arabic  translations  are  avail- 
able, even  in  manuscript ;  but  good  mss.  of  the  Aphor- 
isms^ and  Prognostics^  exist  in  the  British  Museum, 
besides  an  epitome  of  the  "sixteen  books"  of  Galen* 
ascribed  toYahydan-Nahwi,or  "John the  Grammarian." 
Of  the  Aphorisms  in  Arabic  there  is  an  Indian  litho- 
graphed edition,  which,  however,  I  have  not  seen.  This 
dearth  of  texts  is  very  unfortunate  for  the  student  of 
Arabian  Medicine,  who  is  thereby  much  hampered  in 
the  solution  of  two  important  preliminary  questions, 
viz.  the  accuracy  and  fidelity  of  these  early  Arabic 
translations,  and  the  development  of  the  Arabic  medical 
terminology,  often  unintelligible  without  reference  to 
the  Greek  original.  As  regards  the  first  question, 
Leclerc^  is  apparently  right  in  his  opinion  that  the  trans- 
lation from  Greek  into  Arabic  was  generally  effected  with 
much  greater  skill  and  knowledge  than  the  later  transla- 
tion from  Arabic  into  Latin,  and  that  he  who  judges 
Arabian  Medicine  only  by  the  latter  will  inevitably  under- 
value it  and  do  it  a  great  injustice.    Indeed  it  is  difficult 

1  p.  289. 

2  Or.  5914,  Or.  6419,  Or.  5820,  Or.  6386,  and  Or.  5939. 
^  Or.  5914.  ^  Arundel,  Or.  17. 

^  Hist,  de  la  Medecine  Arabe^  vol.  ii,  pp.  346-8. 


The  so-called  Sabaeans  of  Harrdn  2  7 

to  resist  the  conclusion  that  many  passages  in  the  Latin 
version  of  the  Qdrnln  of  Avicenna  were  misunderstood 
or  not  understood  at  all  by  the  translator,  and  conse- 
quently can  never  have  conveyed  a  clear  idea  to  the 
reader. 

Another  group  of  great  translators  from  Greek  into 
Arabic  was  provided  by  the  city  of  Harran,  the  classical 
Charrae,  which  remained  pagan  down  to  the  thirteenth 
century,  and,  by  reason  of  the  high  degree  of  Greek 
culture  long  maintained  there,  was  known  as  Helleno- 
polis.  How  the  inhabitants  of  this  city  came  to  be 
known  as  "Sabaeans"  from  the  ninth  century  onwards, 
tliough  they  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  true  Sabaeans 
of  Chaldaea  (of  whom  a  remnant,  known  to  the  Muham- 
madans  as  al-Mughtasila  from  their  frequent  ceremonial 
bathings  and  washings,  and  to  Europeans,  for  the  same 
reason,  as  ''Christians  of  St  John  the  Baptist,"  exist  to 
the  present  day  near  Basra  and  along  the  banks  of  the 
Shattu'l-'Arab),  is  a  very  curious  story,  exhaustively  set 
forth,  with  full  documentary  evidence,  by  Chwolson 
in  his  great  work  Die  Ssabier  und  Ssabismus^.  Of  these 
learned  Harranians  the  most  celebrated  were  Thabit 
ibn  Qurra  (born  a.d.  836,  died  a.d.  901),  his  sons 
Ibrdhim  and  Sinan,  his  grandsons  Thabit  and  Ibrahim, 
and  his  great-grandson  Sinan;  and  the  family  of  Zahrun. 
Mention  should  also  be  made  of  another  contemporary 
translator,  though  his  predilection  was  for  mathematics 
rather  than  medicine,  Qusta  ibn  Luqd,  a  Christian  of 
Baalbek  in  Syria,  who  died  about  a.d.  923. 

Thus  by  the  tenth  century  the  Muslims,  to  all  of 
whom,  irrespective  of  race,  Arabic  was  not  only  the 
language  of  Revelation  and  Religion,  but  also  of  science, 
diplomacy  and  polite  intercourse,  had  at  their  disposal 

^  St  Petersburg,  1856  (2  vols.).    See  vol.  i,  ch.  vi  (pp.  139-157). 


28  Arabian  Medicine.   I 

a  great  mass  of  generally  excellent  translations  of  all 
the  most  famous  philosophical  and  scientific  writings  of 
the  Greeks.  For  Greek  poetry  and  drama  they  cared 
little,  and  of  the  Latin  writers  they  seem  to  have  known 
nothing  whatever.  Of  the  Greek  medical  writers,  besides 
Hippocrates  and  Galen,  their  favourites  were  Rufus  of 
Ephesus,  Oribasius,  Paul  of  ^gina,  and  Alexander  of 
Tralles;  and,  for  materia  medica,  Dioscorides.  In  some 
cases  Greek  writings,  lost  in  the  original,  have  been  pre- 
served to  us  in  Arabic  translations.  The  most  notable 
instance  of  this  is  afforded  by  the  seven  books  of  Galen's 
Anatomy  (ix-xv),  lost  in  the  original  Greek  but  pre- 
served in  the  Arabic,  of  which  the  text,  with  German 
translation  and  f\i\\  apparatus  criticus,  has  been  published 
by  Dr  Max  Simon ^  with  an  admirable  Arabic-Greek- 
German  vocabulary  of  technical  terms,  to  which  re- 
ference has  already  been  made. 

Were  the  materials  accessible,  it  would  be  interesting 
to  compare  those  Arabic  translations  made  directly  from 
the  Greek  with  those  which  first  passed  through  the 
medium  of  Syriac.  Of  the  few  Syriac  versions  preserved 
to  us  I  cannot  myself  form  an  opinion,  being  unfortu- 
nately unacquainted  with  that  language,  but  they  are 
rather  harshly  judged  by  M.  Pognon,  of  whose  edition 
and  translation  of  the  Syriac  Aphorisms  of  Hippocrates 
I  have  already  spoken^  "The  Syriac  version  of  the 
Aphorisms  contained  in  my  manuscript,"  he  writes, 
"is  a  very  faithful,  or  rather  too  faithful,  translation  of 
the  Greek  text;  sometimes,  indeed,  it  is  a  literal  trans- 
lation absolutely  devoid  of  sense.  This,  unfortunately, 
does  not  allow  us  to  determine  the  epoch  at  which  it 

^  Sieben  Bucher  Anatomie  des  Galen^  u.s.w.^  2  vols.  (Leipzig,  1906). 
^  Une  Version  Syriaque  des  Aphorismes  d^Hippocrate,  texte  et  tra- 
duction^ par  M.  Pognon^  Consul  de  France  d,  Alep  (Leipzig,  1903). 


Limitations  of  the  Syrian  Translators  29 

was  made,  since  to  render  too  literally  has  been  the 
defect  of  many  Syrian  translators." 

"I  will  not  venture  to  say,"  he  continues,  "that  the 
Syrians  never  possessed  clear  translations  written  in  a 
correct  style,  but  in  most  of  the  translations  which  have 
reached  us  the  style  is  often  obscure,  the  construction 
incorrect,  and  words  are  often  employed  in  a  sense  not 
properly  belonging  to  them,  this  generally  arising  from 
the  desire  of  the  Syriac  translator  to  reproduce  the 
Greek  text  too  faithfully.  The  Syrian  translators,  when 
they  found  a  difficult  passage,  too  often  contented  them- 
selves with  rendering  each  Greek  word  by  a  Syriac 
word  without  in  any  way  seeking  to  write  an  intelligible 
sentence.  Thus  we  find  in  their  translations  many 
incorrect  sentences,  and  even  expressions  which  have 
absolutely  no  meaning.  In  short,  I  believe  that  when 
they  did  not  understand  the  meaning  of  a  Greek  word, 
the  translators  did  not  hesitate  to  transcribe  it  in  Syriac 
characters,  leaving  their  readers  to  conjecture  the 
meaning  of  these  barbarisms  which  they  had  created." 
The  translation  of  the  Aphorisms,  with  which  he  is 
specially  concerned,  M.  Pognon  characterizes  as  ''de- 
testable," and  adds:  "Whenever  the  translator  comes 
across  an  obscure  passage,  his  translation  is  obscure; 
and  whenever  he  meets  with  a  passage  which  is  suscep- 
tible of  several  different  renderings,  his  translation  can 
be  interpreted  in  several  different  ways."  This  assertion 
he  proves  by  numerous  examples. 

The  Arab  mind,  on  the  other  hand,  is  clear  and 
positive,  and  the  Arabic  language  nervous,  virile  and 
rich  both  actually  and  potentially.  The  old  Arabs  were 
an  acute  and  observant  people,  and  for  all  natural  objects 
which  fell  under  their  notice  they  had  appropriate  and 
finely  differentiated   words.     To   render  the  medical 


30  Arabian  Medicine.    I 

works  of  the  Greeks  into  their  own  language  they  had, 
of  course,  in  many  cases,  to  invent  new  terms  translated 
or  imitated  from  the  Greek,  and  often  only  to  be  under- 
stood by  reference  to  the  Greek  originals;  but  they 
already  possessed  a  fairly  copious  anatomical  vocabulary, 
which,  moreover,  they  were  fond  of  using  in  ordinary 
life,  even  in  their  poetry.  Thus  the  Umayyad  Caliph 
Yazid  ibn  'Abdu'l-Malik,  who,  in  105/723-4,  died  of 
love  for  the  slave-girl  Habbaba,  was  deeply  stirred  by 
her  singing  of  the  following  verse  ^: 

^^  Between  the  clavicles  and  tJu  uvula  is  a  burning  heat 
Which  cannot  be  appeased  or  swallowed  down  and  cooled^ 

The  poet  al-Mutanabbi  (tenth  century)  has  a  poem^ 
on  a  fever  by  which  he  was  attacked  in  Egypt  in 
Dhu'l-Hijja  348  (February  960),  and  which  left  him — 

^'Sick  of  body,  unable  to  rise  up,  vehemently  intoxicated  {i.e.  delirious) 
without  wine." 

He  compares  the  fever  to  a  coy  maiden  who  will 
only  visit  him  under  cover  of  darkness  : 


'^U,*JI      cl^U     4ju^^JLi 
'>ola».M>      ^.jujjLj     lyA.«tjL« 


a  f- 


J     0 
^^  JO 


^.jJi^L^   ^^jiJLijli   Lo  131 


^  jj  o  ^  0  J  vt   e- 

^jaSs  U;kj-lsu  9>-^cJt  ^l^ 


^  Kitdbu  U-Fakhri,  ed.  Ahlwardt,  p.  155. 
^  Ed.  Dieterici,  pp.  675-680. 


Al-Mtitanabbf  s  Ode  to  a  Fever  31 

^^And  it  is  as  though  she  who  visits  me  were  filled  with  modesty^ 
For  she  does  not  pay  her  visits  save  under  cover  of  darkness. 
I  freely  offered  her  my  linen  and  my  pillows^ 
But  she  refused  them,  and  spent  the  night  in  my  bones. 
My  skin  is  too  contracted  to  contain  both  my  breath  and  her, 
So  she  relaxes  it  with  all  sorts  of  sickness. 

When  she  leaves  me,  she  washes  me  [with  perspiration^ 
As  though  we  had  retired  apart  for  some  forbidden  action. 
It  is  as  though  the  morning  drives  her  away, 
And  her  lachrymal  ducts  are  flooded  in  their  four  chaitnels. 
I  watch  for  her  tim^  [of  arrival~\  without  desire. 

Yet  with  the  watchfulness  of  the  eager  lover. 
And  she  is  ever  faithful  to  her  appointed  time,  but  faithfulness  is  an  evil 

When  it  casts  thee  into  grievous  sufferings. ^^ 

Under  such  astonishing  imagery  are  clearly  depicted 
the  delirium  and  regular  nightly  recurrence  of  the  fever, 
the  rigors  which  mark  its  onset,  and  the  copious 
perspiration  with  which  it  concludes,  the  latter  being 
fantastically  likened  to  the  weeping  of  a  woman  torn 
from  her  lover's  arms. 

That  in  the  days  of  the  Caliphate  every  educated 
person  was  expected  to  take  some  interest  in  Medicine 
and  to  know  something  about  Anatomy  is  shown  by  the 
curious  story  of  the  equally  fair  and  talented  slave-girl 
Tawaddud  in  the  A^^abian  Nights.  The  girl  is  offered 
to  the  Caliph  Harunu'r-Rashid  for  an  enormous  price 
(10,000  dindrs)  by  her  bankrupt  master  Abu'1-Husn,  and 
the  Caliph  agrees  to  pay  this  sum  provided  she  can 
answer  satisfactorily  any  questions  addressed  to  her  by 
those  most  learned  in  each  of  the  many  branches  of 
knowledge  in  which  she  claims  to  excel.  Therefore  the 
most  notable  professors  of  Theology,  Law,  Exegesis 


32  Arabian  Medicine,    I 

of  the  Qur'dn,  Medicine,  Astronomy,  Philosophy, 
Rhetoric  and  Chess  examine  her  in  succession,  and  in 
each  case  she  not  only  gives  satisfactory  replies  to  all 
their  questions,  but  ends  by  putting  to  each  of  them  a 
question  which  he  is  unable  to  answer.  Lane  describes 
this  story,  which  provides  material  for  six  of  the  looi 
NightsS  as  '* extremely  tiresome  to  most  readers,"  but  it 
is  very  valuable  as  indicating  what  was  regarded  by  the 
medieval  Muslims  as  a  good  all-round  education.  The 
medical  portion  of  the  examination  includes  the  outlines 
of  Anatomy  and  Physiology,  according  to  Arabian  ideas, 
diagnosis  from  signs  and  symptoms,  humoristic  Patho- 
logy, Hygiene,  Dietetics  and  the  like.  The  enumeration 
of  the  bones  is  fairly  complete,  but  that  of  the  blood- 
vessels very  vague.  Of  the  branches  of  the  Aorta,  says 
Tawaddud,  "none  knoweth  the  tale  save  He  who 
created  them,  but  it  is  said  that  they  number  360" — a 
mystical  number,  1 2  x  30,  which  still  plays  a  great  part 
in  the  doctrines  of  certain  Muhammadan  sects,  by  whom 
it  is  called  ''The  Number  of  All  Things"  (^  J&  >j^) 
for  reasons  which  it  would  be  tedious  to  enumerate  in 
this  place. 

I  have  already  taken  up  too  much  of  your  time  this 
afternoon  in  the  discussion  of  these  preliminaries.  In 
my  next  lecture  I  propose  to  speak  of  four  of  the  most 
notable  early  medical  writers  of  the  Muslims  who 
succeeded  the  epoch  of  the  great  translators.  These  were 
all  Persians  by  race,  though  they  wrote  in  Arabic;  and 
the  Latin  versions  of  the  chief  works  of  three  of  them, 
known  to  the  Latino- Barbari  as  Rhazes,  Haly  Abbas 
and  Avicenna,  constituted  three  of  the  most  highly 
esteemed  medical  works  current  in  medieval  Europe. 

^  Nights  449-454;  ed.  Macnaghten,  vol.  ii,  pp.  512-521;  Sir  R. 
Burton's  translation,  vol.  v,  pp.  318-227. 


LECTURE  II 

IN  my  last  lecture  I  traced  the  growth  of  the  so-called 
"Arabian  Medicine"  down  to  the  ninth  century  of  our 
era,  the  time  of  the  great  translators  of  the  early 
'Abbisid  period ;  and  I  showed  how,  by  their  diligence 
and  learning,  the  teachings  of  the  most  eminent  physi- 
cians of  Ancient  Greece,  notably  Hippocrates,  Galen, 
Oribasius,  Rufus  of  Ephesus  and  Paul  of  JEgina.,  were 
rendered  accessible  to  the  Muslim  world.  We  must  now 
pass  to  the  independent  Arabic  writers  on  medicine, 
who,  starting  from  this  foundation,  compiled  more  or 
less  original  works  embodying,  to  some  extent,  observa- 
tions of  their  own,  and  arranged  on  their  own  plan. 
The  great  extent  of  the  subject,  however,  obliges  me  to 
impose  on  myself  somewhat  strict  limitations  of  region, 
period  and  topic,  and  I  shall  therefore  confine  myself 
to  the  two  centuries  immediately  succeeding  the  Golden 
Age,  which  lies  between  a.d.  750  and  850,  and  to  the 
Eastern  lands  of  the  Caliphate,  especially  Persia. 
Further,  I  shall  confine  myself  to  four  or  five  of  the 
principal  medical  writers  of  this  limited  period,  and,  as 
a  rule,  to  one  only  of  the  works  of  each.  Even  under 
such  limitations  only  a  very  partial  and  superficial  view 
can  be  obtained,  for  a  whole  series  of  lectures  might 
evidently  be  devoted  to  a  single  section  of  any  one  of 
the  works  which  I  propose  briefly  to  discuss  to-day. 

Before  proceeding  further,  however,  there  are  one 
or  two  preliminary  matters  on  which  a  few  words  should 
be  said,  and  first  of  all  as  to  the  evolution  of  Arabic 
scientific  terminology.  The  Syrians,  as  we  have  seen, 
were  too  much  disposed  to  transcribe  Greek  words  as 


34  Arabian  Medicine,    II 

they  stood,  without  any  attempt  at  elucidation,  leaving 
the  reader  to  make  the  best  he  could  of  them.  The 
medieval  Latin  translators  from  the  Arabic  did  exactly 
the  same,  and  the  Latin  Qdmln  of  Avicenna  swarms 
with  barbarous  words  which  are  not  merely  transcrip- 
tions, but  in  many  cases  almost  unrecognizable  mis- 
transcriptions, of  Arabic  originals.  Thus  the  coccyx  is 
named  in  Arabic  'us'ms  i^^^joatlc^),  or,  with  the  definite 
article,  al-us'us  (^^^JiJJui),  which  appears  in  the  Latin 
version  as  alhosos\  al-qatan  (,j^|),  the  lumbar  region, 
appears  as  alchatim\  al'ajuz  or  al-'ajiz  (>a^)),  the 
sacrum,  variously  appears  as  alhauis  and  al-hagiazi\ 
and  an-nawdjidh  (j^t^jt),  the  wisdom-teeth,  as  nuaged 
or  neguegidi.  Dozens  of  similar  monstrosities  can  be 
gleaned  from  Dr  Hyrtl's  Das  Arabische  und Hebrdische 
in  der  Anatomie  (Vienna,  1879),  and  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  the  Arabs  also  were,  in  a  lesser  degree, 
guilty  of  a  similar  mutilation  of  Greek  words,  as,  for 
example,  the  transformation  of  dfjuvelos  into  an/as 
(j^^i),  which  in  turn,  in  the  hands  of  the  Latino- Barbari, 
became  abgas. 

Generally,  however,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
Arabic  language  almost  entirely  lacks  the  Greek  facility 
of  forming  compound  words  to  express  new  and  com- 
plex ideas,  the  Arabs  succeeded  in  paraphrasing  the 
Greek  technical  terms  with  fair  success.  Diaznosis  is 
fairly  rendered  by  tashkhis,  which  primarily  means  the 
identification  of  a  person  (shakhs) ;  prognosis  is  more 
cumbrously  rendered  by  taqdimatti  l-ma^rifati,  literally, 
the  sending  forward  of  knowledge.  In  the  earliest 
Arabic  medical  books,  like  the  Firdawsul-Hikmat, 
or  *' Paradise  of  Wisdom,"  of  which  I  shall  speak 
immediately,  strange  Syro- Persian  words,  probably 
borrowed  from  the  vocabulary  of  Jundi-Shdpiir,  and 


Evolution  of  Arabic  Terminology  35 

subsequently  replaced  by  good  Arabic  equivalents, 
appear.  Thus  in  the  almost  unique  ms.  of  the  work 
just  mentioned  there  twice  occurs  a  word  for  a  headache 
affecting  the  whole  head  (as  contrasted  with  shaqiqa, 
which  denotes  hemicrania  or  migraine),  faultily  written 
in  both  cases  (once  as  ^jyi^  and  once  as  iSj^-^),  which 
only  after  numerous  enquiries  of  Syriac  scholars  was 
identified  as  the  Syriac  sanwarta  (r^^io^oo),  said  to  be 
a  Persian  word  meaning  primarily  a  helmet.  And  in  fact 
it  is  evidently  the  Persian  sar-band  {JSl^  or  sar-wand 
with  transposition  of  the  r  and  the  n  i^san-ward  for  sar- 
wand)  and  the  addition  of  the  Syriac  final  emphatic  a. 
This  may  serve  as  an  instance  of  the  kind  of  trouble 
which  the  reader  or  translator,  or  still  more  the  editor, 
of  these  old  Arabic  medical  works  is  apt  to  meet  with, 
for  of  scarcely  any,  even  of  the  few  which  have  been 
published  in  the  original,  do  critical  editions  exist. 

On  the  other  hand,  apart  from  the  fairly  copious 
anatomical,  pathological  and  medical  vocabulary  properly 
belonging  to  the  Arabic  language,  it  has  a  great  power 
of  forming  significant  derivatives  from  existing  rdots, 
which,  when  formed,  are  at  once  intelligible.  Thus  there 
exists  in  Arabic  a  special  form  for  the  ''noun  of  pain," 
wherein  the  first  root-letter  is  followed  by  a  short  m  and 
the  second  by  a  long  a  (the  form  known  to  Arab 
grammarians  as  j\^,fu'dl),  and  this  is  the  form  assumed 
by  the  names  of  most  diseases  and  ailments;  as  the 
already  mentioned  sudd'  (cljJ>),  ''a  splitting  headache," 
the  ''soda''  of  the  Latino-Barbari;  zukdm  (^li»j),  "a 
C2it2ocr\i' \  j'udkdm  {jiS'jJ^),  '*  elephantiasis,"  etc.  On  this 
analogy  we  get,  from  the  root  dawr  (jji),  ''revolving," 
duwdr  (jtji),  "vertigo,"  the  sickness  produced  by  being 
whirled  round;  from  bakr  {jLS),  *'the  sea,"  buhdr{j\L^^), 


36  Arabian  Medicine.    II 

''sea-sickness";  from  khamr  (j^)',  *'wine,"  khumdr 
(jCi^),  the  headache  resulting  from  undue  indulgence 
in  wine;  and  so  forth.  I  never  met  with  the  word 
jubdl  (jl^)  iromjabal  (j^),  "a  mountain,"  but,  if  I  did 
meet  with  it,  I  should  know  that  it  could  mean  nothing 
else  but  "mountain-sickness."  In  other  cases  the  Arabic 
technical  term  implies  a  pathological  theory,  as,  for 
example,  istisqdy^'^k^S^^  mustasqi  (^^3jLli.>U^,  which  are 
respectively  the  verbal  noun  and  the  active  participle 
of  the  tenth,  or  desiderative,  conjugation  of  the  root 

saqa,  yasqi  (^^5*-^  \^\  ''to  give  drink  to,"  and  in 
ordinary  language  mean  "craving  for  drink"  and  "one 
who  craves  for  drink,"  but  in  Medicine  "dropsy"  and 
"dropsical,"  conformably  to  the  familiar  Latin  adage, 
Crescit  indulgens  sibi  dims  hydrops.  Thus  it  will  be 
apparent  that  Arabic  is  on  the  whole  well  adapted  for 
providing  a  suitable  technical  terminology,  which,  in 
fact,  it  has  done  for  the  whole  Muslim  world,  whether 
they  speak  Arabic,  Persian,  Turkish  or  Urdu,  and  which, 
as  the  modern  Egyptian  Press  testifies,  it  continues  to 
do  at  the  present  day. 

Another  point  deserving  brief  notice  is  the  question 
whether  dissection  was  ever  practised  by  the  Muslims. 
The  answer  is  usually  given  in  the  negative,  and  I 
must  admit  that  I  incline  to  this  view;  but  in  an  immense, 
unfinished,  modern  Persian  biographical  dictionary  en- 
titled Ndma-i-Ddnishwardn,  "the  Book  of  Learned 
Men,"  compiled  by  command  of  the  late  Nasiru'd-Din 
Shdh  by  four  learned  men,  to  wit  Mirzd  Abu'1-Fadl  of 
Sawa  the  physician,  Shaykh  Muhammad  Mahdi  'Abdu'r- 
Rabb-dbddi,  entitled  Shamsul-'Ulamd,  Mirza  Hasan-i- 
Tdlaqdni,  entitled  Adib,  and  Mirzd  'Abdu'l-Wahhab 
ibn  'Abdu'l-'Ali  of  Qazwin,  and  lithographed  at  Tihrdn 


Dissection  in  Muslim  Lands  2^7 

25  years  ago,  it  is  stated^  that  the  celebrated  Yuhanna 
ibn  Masawayh,  being  unable  to  obtain  human  subjects, 
dissected  apes  in  a  special  dissecting-room  which  he  built 
on  the  banks  of  the  Tigris,  and  that  a  particular  species 
of  ape,  considered  to  resemble  man  most  closely,  was, 
by  command  of  the  Caliph  al-Mu'tasim,  supplied  to  him 
about  the  year  a.d.  836  by  the  ruler  of  Nubia.  This 
story  is  given  on  the  authority  of  Ibn  Abi  Usaybi^a,  in 
whose  Classes  of  Physicians^  it  in  fact  occurs  in  a  less 
clear  and  detailed  form.  It  is,  however,  not  to  be  found 
in  al-Qifti's  History  of  the  Philosophers,  and  cannot,  I 
fear,  be  regarded  as  affording  weighty  evidence  as  to 
the  practice  of  dissection  in  the  medical  schools  of  the 
Arabs.  This  Yuhanna  ibn  Mdsawayh  had  a  bad  temper 
and  a  sharp  tongue.  According  to  the  Fihrist  he  once 
said  to  a  courtier  who  had  annoyed  him,  ''If  the 
ignorance  wherewith  thou  art  afflicted  were  converted 
into  understanding,  and  then  divided  amongst  a  hundred 
beetles,  each  one  of  them  would  be  more  sagacious  than 
Aristotle!" 

To  come  now  to  the  medical  writers  of  whom  I  pro- 
pose to  speak  this  afternoon,  the  oldest  of  them  is  'Ali 
ibn  Rabban  of  Tabaristan,  the  Persian  province  south 
of  the  Caspian  Sea.  Rabban,  as  he  himself  explains  at 
the  beginning  of  his  book,  was  the  title,  not  the  name, 
of  his  father. 

''My  father,"  he  says,  "was  the  son  of  a  certain 
scribe  of  the  city  of  Merv...who  had  a  great  zeal  for 
the  pursuit  of  virtue... and  sought  to  derive  benefit  from 
books  on  Medicine  and  Philosophy,  preferring  Medicine 
to  the  profession  of  his  fathers.  Herein  his  object  was 
not  so  much  to  seek  after  praise  and  profit  as  to  con- 
form himself  to  the  Divine  Attributes,  and  so  to  earn 

^  Vol.  ii,  pp.  J7-8.  *  Vol.  i,  p.  178  of  the  Cairo  ed. 

BAM      4 


$S  Arabian  Medicine,    II 

the  consideration  of  mankind.  Wherefore  he  received 
the  title  of  Rabban^  which  being  interpreted  signifies 
'our  Master'  and  'our  Teacher.'" 

From  this  title  we  may  infer  that  our  author's  father 
was  a  Christian  or  a  Jew,  and  in  fact  al-Qifti^  who  gives 
a  short  notice  of  him,  says  that  he  -professed  the  latter 
religion  ;  that  the  father  s  proper  name  was  Sahl,  and 
that  the  son  only  made  profession  of  Isldm  after  he 
entered  the  service  of  the  Caliph  al-Mutawakkil.  Pre- 
viously to  this  he  had  been  secretary  to  the  celebrated 
Mazyar,  of  the  noble  Persian  house  of  Qdren,  who 
rebelled  against  the  Caliph  in  the  hope  of  liberating  his 
country  from  the  Arab  yoke,  and  was  finally  captured 
and  crucified  at  Baghdad  beside  the  heresiarch  Babak. 
'All  ibn  Rabban  subsequently  entered  the  service  of 
the  Caliph,  and  finally,  in  the  third  year  of  his  reign 
(a.d.  850),  succeeded,  after  many  interruptions,  in  com- 
pleting the  work  on  Medicine  and  Natural  Philosophy 
on  which  he  had  long  been  engaged,  and  which  he 
entitled  Firdawsu  l-Hikmat,  the  "  Paradise  of  Wisdom." 
This  is  nearly  all  that  is  known  of  his  life,  except  that 
from  an  illustration  given  in  his  book^  it  is  evident  that 
he  was,  as  his  nisba  implies,  familiar  with  the  mountains 
and  mists  of  Tabaristan,  and  the  much  more  important 
fact  that  he  was  one  of  the  teachers  of  the  great 
physician  ar-Razi  or  Rhazes,  a  fact  which  in  itself  in- 
vests his  work  with  considerable  interest.  According 
to  the  Fihrist^  he  only  wrote  four  books,  of  which  the 
"Paradise  of  Wisdom"  is  the  most  important.  It  must 
at  one  time  have  been  well  known  and  highly  esteemed, 
for,  as  we  learn  from  Yaqiit's  Dictionary  of  Lea^^ned 
Men\  the   great  historian   Muhammad  ibn  Jarir  at- 

^  p.  231.         2  Brit.  Mus.  MS.  Arundel,  Or.  41,  f.  15  a. 

'  p.  296.  *  "E.  J.  W.  Gibb  Memoriar'  Series,  vi,  6,  p.  429. 


The  ''Paradise  of  Wisdom'^  39 

Tabari  was  reading  it  while  he  lay  sick  in  bed;  while 
in  another  passage  of  the  same  work\  where  that 
eminent  patron  of  letters  the  Sahib  Ismail  ibn  *Abbad 
is  censured  for  imagining  himself  to  be  superior  to  all 
the  greatest  authorities  in  every  science  and  art,  the 
Firdaws, or  'Taradise,"  of 'Ali  ibn  Rabban^  is  mentioned 
amongst  those  authorities.  Subsequently  this  book, 
like  so  many  other  precious  Arab  works,  became  almost 
extinct,  and  at  the  present  day,  so  far  as  I  can  ascertain, 
there  exist  only  two  manuscripts  of  it,  one  fine  old  copy 
(Arundel,  Or.  41)  in  the  British  Museum,  which  I  have 
had  photographed  for  my  use ;  and  another  (Landberg, 
266)  at  Berlin ;  but  this  latter  copy  seems,  so  far  as  I  have 
been  able  to  learn,  to  be  only  an  abridgment,  or  at  least 
to  contain  a  somewhat  mutilated  or  abbreviated  text. 

The  ''Paradise  of  Wisdom,"  which  I  hope  some 
day  to  edit  and  perhaps  translate,  deals  chiefly  with 
Medicine,  but  also  to  some  extent  with  Philosophy, 
Meteorology,  Zoology,  Embryology,  Psychology  and 
Astronomy.  It  is  a  fair-sized  book  containing  nearly 
550  pages,  and  is  divided  into  7  parts  {Naw'),  30  dis- 
courses {Maqdla),  and  360  chapters.  The  author 
mentions  as  his  principal  sources  Hippocrates,  Aristotle, 
Galen,  Yuhanna  ibn  Mdsawayh  (Messues)  and  Hunayn 
"the  Interpreter,"  t,e.  Hunayn  ibn  Ishdq,  the  medieval 
Johannitius.  The  fourth  and  last  Discourse  of  the 
seventh  Part  contains  in  36  chapters  a  summary  of 
Indian  Medicine.  It  would  be  tedious  to  you  if  I  were 
to  read  out  the  abstract  of  the  contents  of  the  book 
which  I  have  made,  nor  would  the  author  himself  have 
approved  such  a  procedure,  for  he  says : 

*'  He  who  perpends  this  book  with  understanding 

1  "E.  J.  W.  Gibb  Memorial"  Series,  vi,  2,  p.  279. 
^  The  text  erroneously  has  ^j-jj  {Zayn)  for  ^^  {Rabban). 
4-2 


40  Arabian  Medicine.    II 

resembles  one  who  wanders  in  fruitful  and  pleasant 
gardens,  or  in  the  markets  of  great  cities,  wherein  is 
provided  for  each  of  the  senses  its  pleasure  and  delight. 
But  just  as  he  who  limits  his  knowledge  of  such  gardens 
and  cities  to  the  contemplation  of  their  gates  is  as  one 
who  seeth  naught  of  them,  so  he  who  enumerates  the 
chapters  of  this  my  book  without  attentively  reading 
what  is  contained  in  each,  doth  not  understand  the  true 
meaning  of  what  I  say.... But  he  who  masters  this  book, 
and  fully  fathoms  and  perpends  it,  will  find  In  it  the 
greater  part  of  what  the  young  graduate  needs  of  the 
Science  of  Medicine  and  the  action  of  the  natural  forces 
in  this  Microcosm  and  also  in  the  Macrocosm." 

Some  justification  is  perhaps  needed  for  rendering 
the  Arabic  word  mutakharrij  in  the  above  passage  in 
its  modern  sense  of  "graduate,"  which  may  seem  too 
definite  a  translation  of  a  word  implying  one  who  comes 
out,  or  issues  forth,  from  a  school  or  college  at  which 
he  has  completed  his  studies.  It  Is  therefore  worth 
noting  that  some  sort  of  qualifying  examination  in 
medicine,  if  it  did  not  already  exist  in  a.d.  850,  when 
our  author  wrote,  was  instituted  80  years  later  in  the 
reign  of  the  Caliph  al-MuqtadIr  on  account  of  a  case  of 
malpraxis  which  came  to  his  notice  In  a.d.  931.  He 
thereupon  issued  an  order,  as  al-Qifti  informs  us\  that 
none  should  practise  medicine  In  Baghdad  unless  he  was 
able  to  satisfy  Sindn  ibn  Thdbit  of  Harrdn  of  his  com- 
petence and  proficiency,  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
physicians  of  recognized  standing,  who,  on  account  of 
their  reputation,  were  exempted  from  this  test,  to  which 
the  remainder,  numbering  some  860,  had  to  submit. 
That  the  examination  was  not  always  of  a  very  searching 
character  is  shown  by  the  following  incident.  Amongst 
^  TaWikhuH'Hukamdy  pp.  19 1-2. 


A  lenient  Oral  Examination  41 

the  practitioners  who  presented  themselves  before  Sindn 
was  a  dignified  and  well-dressed  old  man  of  imposing 
appearance.  Sindn  accordingly  treated  him  with  con- 
sideration and  respect,  and  addressed  to  him  various 
remarks  on  the  cases  before  him.  When  the  other  can- 
didates had  been  dismissed,  he  said,  *'  I  should  like  to 
hear  from  the  Shaykh  (Professor)  something  which  I 
may  remember  from  him,  and  that  he  should  mention 
who  was  his  Teacher  in  the  Profession."  Thereupon  the 
old  gentleman  laid  a  packet  of  money  before  Sindn  and 
said,  "■  I  cannot  read  or  write  well,  nor  have  I  read  any- 
thing systematically,  but  I  have  a  family  whom  I  main- 
tain by  my  professional  labours,  which,  therefore,  I  beg 
you  not  to  interrupt."  Sindn  laughed  and  replied,  ''On 
condition  that  you  do  not  treat  any  patient  with  what 
you  know  nothing  about,  and  that  you  do  not  prescribe 
phlebotomy  or  any  purgative  drug  save  for  simple 
ailments."  ''This,"  said  the  old  man,  "has  been  my 
practice  all  my  life,  nor  have  I  ever  ventured  beyond 
sirkangabin  (oxymel)  and  julldb  (jalap)."  Next  day 
amongst  those  who  presented  themselves  before  Sindn 
was  a  well-dressed  young  man  of  pleasing  and  intelligent 
appearance.  "With  whom  did  you  study?"  enquired 
Sinan.  "  With  my  father,"  answered  the  youth.  "And 
who  is  your  father  V  asked  Sindn.  "The  old  gentleman 
who  was  with  you  yesterday,"  replied  the  other.  "  A 
fine  old  gentleman!"  exclaimed  Sindn ;  "and  do  you 
follow  his  methods  ?... Yes?... Then  see  to  it  that  you 
do  not  go  beyond  them  ! " 

Although,  as  I  have  said,  a  detailed  statement  of  the 
contents  of  the  "Paradise  of  Wisdom"  would  be  out 
of  place,  the  general  plan  of  the  book  may  be  briefly 
indicated. 


42  Arabian  Medicine,    II 

Part  I.  Treats  of  certain  general  philosophical  ideas, 
the  categories,  natures,  elements,  metamorphosis, 
genesis  and  decay. 

Part  II.  Treats  of  embryology,  pregnancy,  the  func- 
tions and  morphology  of  different  organs,  ages  and 
seasons,  psychology,  the  external  and  Internal 
senses,  the  temperaments  and  emotions,  personal 
idiosyncrasies,  certain  nervous  affections  (tetanus, 
torpor,  palpitation,  nightmare,  etc.),  the  evil  eye, 
hygiene  and  dietetics. 

Part  III.    Treats  of  nutrition  and  dietetics. 

Part  IV.  (The  longest,  comprising  1 2  Discourses) treats 
of  general  and  special  pathology,  from  the  head 
to  the  feet,  and  concludes  with  an  account  of  the 
number  of  muscles,  nerves  and  veins,  and  disserta- 
tions on  phlebotomy,  the  pulse  and  urinoscopy. 

Part  V.    Treats  of  tastes,  scents  and  colours. 

Part  VI.    Treats  of  materia  medica  and  toxicology. 

Part  VII.  Treats  of  climate,  waters  and  seasons  In 
their  relation  to  health,  outlines  of  cosmography 
and  astronomy,  and  the  utility  of  the  science  of 
medicine:  and  concludes,  as  already  noted,  with  a 
summary  of  Indian  Medicine  in  36  chapters. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  book  contains  very  little 
about  anatomy  or  surgery  and  a  great  deal  about  climate, 
diet  and  drugs.  Including  poisons.  Part  IV,  dealing  with 
pathology.  Is  on  the  whole  the  most  interesting,  and  I 
may,  perhaps,  be  permitted  to  enumerate  more  fully  the 
contents  of  the  12  Discourses  which  It  comprises: 

Discourse  i  (9  chapters)  on  general  pathology,  the 
signs  and  symptoms  of  Internal  disorders,  and  the 
principles  of  therapeutics. 

Discourse  2  (14  chapters)  on  diseases  and  Injuries  of 
the  head ;  and  diseases  of  the  brain,  Including  epi- 
lepsy, various  kinds  of  headache,  tinnitus,  vertigo, 
amnesia,  and  nightmare. 


Contents  of  the  ''Paradise  of  Wisdom"  43 

Discourse  3(12  chapters)  on  diseases  of  the  eyes  and 
eyelids,  the  ear  and  the  nose  (including  epistaxis 
and  catarrh),  the  face,  mouth  and  teeth. 

Discourse  4(7  chapters)  on  nervous  diseases,  including 
spasm,  tetanus,  paralysis,  facial  palsy,  etc. 

Discourse  5  (7  chapters)  on  diseases  of  the  throat,  chest 
and  vocal  organs,  including  asthma. 

Discourse  6  (6  chapters)  on  diseases  of  the  stomach, 
including  hiccough. 

Discourse  7  (5  chapters)  on  diseases  of  the  liver,  in- 
cluding dropsy. 

Discourse  8(14  chapters)  on  diseases  of  the  heart,  lungs, 
gall-bladder  and  spleen. 

Discourse  9(19  chapters)  on  diseases  of  the  intestines 
(especially  colic),  and  of  the  urinary  and  genital 
organs. 

Discourse  10  (26  chapters)  on  fevers,  ephemeral,  hectic, 
continuous,  tertian,  quartan  and  semi-quartan ;  on 
pleurisy,  erysipelas,  and  small-pox ;  on  crises,  prog- 
nosis, favourable  and  unfavourable  symptoms,  and 
the  signs  of  death. 

Discourse  11(13  chapters)  on  rheumatism,  gout,  sciatica, 
leprosy,  elephantiasis,  scrofula,  lupus,  cancer, 
tumours,  gangrene,  wounds  and  bruises,  shock,  and 
plague.  The  last  four  chapters  deal  with  ana- 
tomical matters,  including  the  numbers  of  the 
muscles,  nerves  and  blood-vessels. 

Discourse  12  (20  chapters)  on  phlebotomy,  cupping, 
baths  and  the  indications  afforded  by  the  pulse  and 
urine. 

This  Fourth  Part  constitutes  nearly  two-fifths  of  the 
whole  book,  occupying  107  out  of  276  folios  and  com- 
prising in  all  152  chapters.  Each  chapter  is  therefore 
very  short,  often  less  than  one  page  and  seldom  more 
than  two.     There  is  little  attempt  to  go  beyond  the 


44  Arabian  Medicine,   II 

chief  signs  and  symptoms  of  each  disease  and  the  treat- 
ment recommended,  and,  so  far  as  I  have  seen,  there 
are  no  references  to  actual  cases,  or  clinical  notes.  The 
book,  indeed,  except  for  the  First  Part — which  deals 
with  general  philosophic  conceptions,  and  contains  some 
interesting  ideas  regarding  the  genesis  of  the  Four 
Elements  (Earth,  Air,  Fire  and  Water)  from  the  Four 
Natures  (Heat,  Cold,  Dryness  and  Moisture)  and  their 
metamorphosis  (aJU*:;:-!) — is  little  more  than  a  Prac- 
titioner's Vade-mecum,  chiefly  interesting  as  one  of  the 
earliest  extant  independent  medical  works  in  Arabic 
written  by  the  teacher  of  the  great  physician  whom  we 
have  now  to  consider. 

Abu  Bakr  Muhammad  ibn  Zakariyyd  of  Ray,  hence 
called  in  Arabic  ar-Rdzi,  and  by  the  medieval  Latinists 
"Rhazes,"  was  probably  the  greatest  and  most  original 
of  all  the  Muslim  physicians,  and  one  of  the  most  prolific 
as  an  author.  His  birth-place,  Ray,  situated  a  few  miles 
from  Tihrdn,  the  modern  capital  of  Persia,  was  one  of 
the  most  ancient  Persian  cities,  being  mentioned  in  the 
Avesta"-  as  "Ragha  of  the  three  races,"  the  twelfth  of 
the  good  lands  created  by  Ahura  Mazda.  In  early  life 
music  was  his  chief  interest,  and  he  was  a  skilful  player 
on  the  lute.  He  then  devoted  himself  to  Philosophy, 
but,  according  to  the  Qddi  Sd'id^  ''did  not  fathom 
Metaphysics,  nor  apprehend  its  ultimate  aim,  so  that 
his  judgment  was  troubled  and  he  adopted  indefensible 
views,  espoused  objectionable  \i.e.  heterodox]  doctrines, 
and  criticized  people  whom  he  did  not  understand,  and 
whose  methods  he  did  not  follow."  Herein  he  stands 
in  sharp  contrast  with  A  vicenna,  of  whom  we  shall  speak 

^  Vendtddd,  Fargard  ii,  v.  i6. 
^  Ibn  Abi  Usaybi'a,  i,  p.  310. 


A  r-Rdzi  ( '  'Rhazes')  45 

presently ;  for  Avicenna  was  a  better  philosopher  than 
physician,  but  Razi  a  better  physician  than  philosopher. 
Rdzi,  as  Ibn  Abi  Usaybi*a  informs  us,  spent  most  of 
his  life  in  Persia,  because  it  was  his  native  country,  and 
because  his  brother  and  his  kinsmen  dwelt  there.  His 
interest  in  Medicine  was  aroused,  when  he  was  of 
mature  age,  by  visits  to  the  hospital  and  conversations 
with  an  old  druggist  or  dispenser  who  served  in  it.  Of 
the  hospital  at  Ray  he  ultimately  became  chief  physician, 
and  there  he  attended  regularly,  surrounded  by  his 
pupils  and  the  pupils  of  his  pupils.  Every  patient  who 
presented  himself  was  first  examined  by  the  latter — the 
clinical  clerks,  as  we  should  say ';  and  if  the  case  proved 
too  difficult  for  them  it  was  passed  on  to  the  Master's 
immediate  pupils,  and  finally,  if  necessary,  to  himself. 
Subsequently  Rdzi  became  physician-in-chief  to  the 
great  hospital  at  Baghdad,  about  the  foundation  of  which 
he  is  said  to  have  been  consulted.  Being  asked  to 
select  the  most  suitable  site,  he  is  said  to  have  caused 
pieces  of  meat  to  be  hung  up  in  different  quarters  of  the 
city,  and  to  have  chosen  the  place  where  they  were 
slowest  in  showing  signs  of  decomposition.  While  in 
Persia  he  enjoyed  the  friendship  and  patronage  of 
Mansdr  ibn  Ishdq,  the  ruler  of  Khurasan,  for  whom 
he  composed  his  Kitdbu  l-Mansiiri  (the  *' Liber  Al- 
mansoris").  The  chronology  of  his  life  is  very  uncer- 
tain, for  not  only  do  the  dates  assigned  to  his  death 
vary  between  a.d.  903  and  923^  but  he  has  even  been 
associated  by  some  writers^  with  the  great  Bu  way  hid 

^  Ibn  Abi  Usaybi'a,  i,  p.  314. 

^  Jbid.^  pp.  309-310,  but  the  author  expresses  the  correct  opinion 
that  Razi  was  antecedent  to  'Adudu'd-Dawla,  and  that  the  hospital 
with  which  he  was  connected  only  received  the  name  of  ^Adudi  at  a 
later  date. 


46  Arabian  Medicine.    II 

ruler  *Adudu'd-Dawla,  who  reigned  from  a.d.  949-982, 
and  who  founded  the  Bimdristdnu  I' Adudi,  or  'Adudi 
Hospital,  the  site  of  which  Rdzi  is  said  to  have  selected 
as  described  above,  at  the  end  of  his  reign. 

One  detail  occurring  in  all  the  accounts  of  Razi  is 
that  he  became  blind  towards  the  end  of  his  life  from  a 
cataract,  and  that  he  refused  to  undergo  an  operation 
on  the  ground  that  he  desired  to  see  no  more  of  a  world 
with  which  he  was  disg-usted  and  disillusioned.  The 
indirect  cause  of  his  blindness  is  further  stated  to  have 
been  his  preoccupation  with  Alchemy,  on  which,  as  we 
know  from  the  list  of  his  writings  given  by  al-Oifti  and 
Ibn  Abi  Usaybi^a,  he  composed  twelve  treatises.  One 
of  them  he  dedicated  and  presented  to  a  certain  great 
man,  who  gave  him  a  large  reward,  and  then  bade  him 
apply  his  science  to  the  actual  production  of  gold.  Rdzi 
made  various  excuses  for  declining  this  test,  whereupon 
the  great  man  lost  his  temper,  accused  him  of  fraud  and 
charlatanism,  and  struck  him  a  blow  on  the  head  which 
caused  him  to  go  blind.  Other  writers  assert  that  he 
was  secretly  strangled  for  his  failure,  while  others  ascribe 
his  blindness  to  the  excessive  eating  of  beans,  of  which 
he  was  very  fond.  In  short  his  biographers  have  sought 
to  compensate  us  for  the  meagre  and  conflicting  details 
of  his  career  which  they  offer  us  by  just  such  extra- 
ordinary stories  as  gathered  round  the  natural  philo- 
sophers of  the  Middle  Ages  in  Europe,  where  every 
student  of  science  who  transcended  his  age  was  sus- 
pected of  being  a  magician. 

When  we  turn  to  the  writings  of  Razi,  however,  we 
are  on  surer  ground,  for  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  the 
accuracy  of  the  list  of  those  given  by  the  three  most 
trustworthy  biographers,  and  said  to  be  based  on  the 
author's  own  notes  and  statements.     The  Fihrist,  our 


Writings  of  Ar-Rdzi  47 

oldest  authority,  enumerates  113  major  and  28  minor 
works  by  him,  besides  two  poems.  Most  of  these  are 
lost,  but  what  remain  are  amply  sufficient  to  enable  us 
to  appraise  his  learning,  though  even  of  these  but  few 
are  accessible  save  in  manuscript.  Of  his  many  mono- 
graphs the  most  celebrated  in  Europe  is  his  well-known 
treatise  on  small-pox  and  measles,  first  published  in  the 
original  Arabic  with  a  Latin  translation  by  Channing 
(London,  1766).  Of  this  a  Latin  translation  had  already 
appeared  in  Venice  in  1565,  and  an  English  version 
by  Greenhill  was  published  by  the  Sydenham  Society 
in  1848.  This  tract  was  formerly  known  as  de  Peste  or 
de  Pestilentid,  and,  as  Neuburger  says\  "on  every 
hand  and  with  justice  it  is  regarded  as  an  ornament  to 
the  medical  literature  of  the  Arabs."  **  It  ranks  high 
in  importance,"  he  continues,  *'in  the  history  of  epi- 
demiology as  the  earliest  monograph  upon  small-pox, 
and  shows  us  Rhazes  as  a  conscientious  practitioner, 
almost  free  from  dogmatic  prejudices,  following  in  the 
footsteps  of  Hippocrates." 

Another  monograph  by  Razi  on  stone  in  the  bladder 
and  kidneys  has  been  published  in  the  original,  with  a 
French  translation  (Leyden,  1896),  by  Dr  P.  de  Koning, 
who  has  also  published  the  text  and  translation  of  the 
anatomical  portion  of  the  A^//<^^2^7-//ii?x'/,  or '*  Con tinens," 
together  with  the  corresponding  portions  oi  x\\^  Kitdbu  l- 
Maliki,  or  "Liber  Regius,"  of  'AH  ibnu'l- 'Abbas  and 
the  Qdnun  of  Avicenna.  To  Steinschneider  we  are  in- 
debted for  German  translations  of  other  tracts  by  Razi, 
notably  his  entertaining  work  on  the  success  of  char- 
latans and  quacks  in  securing  a  popularity  often  denied 
to   the  competent    and   properly  qualified  physician". 

^  Ernest  Playfair's  translation,  vol.  i,  p.  362. 
^  Virchow's  Archiv^  vol.  xxxvi,  pp.  570-586. 


48  Arabian  Medicine.    II 

Other  unpublished  monographs  by  Rdzi  exist  in  various 
public  libraries  in  Europe  and  the  East.  Thus  a  ms. 
(Add.  3516)  recently  acquired  by  purchase  by  the 
Cambridge  University  Library  contains  the  treatises  on 
gout  and  rheumatism^  and  on  colic^  mentioned  by 
al-Qifti. 

Of  general  works  on  Medicine,  apart  from  his 
numerous  monographs,  Rdzi  composed  some  half  dozen, 
to  wit  the  Jdmi'  or  "Compendium,"  the  Kdfi  or 
** Sufficient,"  the  Lesser  and  the  Greater  Madkhal  or 
**  Introduction,"  the  MulUki  or  '*  Royal,"  compiled  for 
*Ali  ibn  Veh-Sildhdn  the  ruler  of  Tabaristdn,  the  Fdkhir 
or  "Splendid"  (of  which,  however,  the  authorship  seems 
to  be  uncertain),  and  last  but  not  least  the  Mansiiri 
or  "Liber  Almansoris,"  of  which  a  Latin  translation 
was  published  in  a.d.  1489,  and  the  Hdwi  or  *' Con- 
tinens,"  of  which  a  Latin  translation  was  published  in 
A.D.  i486  at  Brescia,  and  again  at  Venice  in  a.d.  1542. 
This  translation  is  very  rare,  and  the  only  copy  at 
Cambridge  is  in  the  Library  of  King's  College^  It  is 
of  the  Hdwi  or  "  Continens  "  only  that  I  propose  to 
speak,  since  it  is  by  far  the  largest  and  most  important 
of  Rdzi's  works. 

Unfortunately  the  study  of  the  Hdwi  is  fraught  with 
peculiar  difficulties.  Not  only  has  it  never  been  pub- 
lished in  the  original,  but  no  complete  manuscript  exists, 
and,  indeed,  so  far  as  my  present  knowledge  goes,  I 
doubt  if  more  than  half  of  this  immense  work  exists  at 
all  at  the  present  day,  while  the  extant  volumes  are 
widely  dispersed,  three  volumes  in  the  British  Museum, 
three  in  the  Bodleian,  four  or  five  in  the  Escorial,  others 
at  Munich  and  Petrograd  and  some  abridgments  in 

1  Ff.  110-142.  2  Yi.  48-62. 

'  Its  class-mark  is  xv.  4.  2. 


The  Hdwi  or  ''Continens"  49 

Berlin.  Moreover  there  is  some  uncertainty  as  to  the 
number  and  contents  of  the  volumes  which  the  work 
comprises,  for  while  the  Fihrist^  enumerates  only  12, 
the  Latin  translation  contains  25,  nor  is  there  any  cor- 
respondence in  subject-matter  or  arrangement.  This 
confusion  arises  partly,  no  doubt,  from  the  fact  that 
the  Hdwi  was  a  posthumous  work,  compiled  after  the 
death  of  Rdzi  by  his  pupils  from  unfinished  notes  and 
papers  which  he  left  behind  him,  and  lacking  the  unity 
of  plan  and  finishing  touches  which  only  the  author's 
hand  could  give,  and  partly  from  the  fact  that  the  same 
title  seems  to  have  been  sometimes  applied  to  another 
of  his  larger  works.  Moreover  the  Hdwi,  on  account 
of  its  enormous  size  and  the  mass  of  detail  which  it 
contained,  appalled  the  most  industrious  copyists,  and 
was  beyond  the  reach  of  all  save  the  most  wealthy 
bibliophiles,  so  that  'AH  ibnu'l-'Abbds,  of  whom  I  shall 
next  speak,  and  who  wrote  only  50  or  60  years  after 
Razi's  death,  tells  us  that  in  his  day  he  only  knew  of 
two  complete  copies ^  From  what  original  the  Latin 
translation  was  made,  and  whether  or  where  that 
original  now  exists,  we  are  unfortunately  ignorant,  since 
the  medieval  translators  did  not  condescend  to  mention 
such  details.  In  face  of  these  difficulties  all  that  I  have 
been  able  to  do  is  to  examine  superficially  the  half  dozen 
volumes  in  the  British  Museum  and  the  Bodleian 
Libraries.  Of  these  the  most  interesting  is  Marsh  156 
of  the  latter  library,  and  in  particular  ff.  239  ^-245  b,  of 
which,  through  the  kindness  of  Dr  Cowley  and  Professor 
Margoliouth,  I  have  obtained  photographs. 

I  have  already  said,  and  indeed  it  has  been  generally 

1  p.  300. 

2  Kdmilu' s-^ind'at  {=al-Kitdbu'l-Maliki)i  Cairo  edition  of  1294/ 
1877,  vol.  i,  pp.  5-6. 


50  Arabian  Medicine.    II 

recognized  by  all  authorities  on  this  subject,  that  it  is 
as  a  clinical  observer  that  Razi  excels  all  his  compeers ; 
and  since  the  clinical  notes  of  these  old  ''  Arabian " 
physicians  are  of  much  greater  interest  and  importance 
than  their  obsolete  physiology  and  pathology  or  their 
second-hand  anatomy,  a  careful  study  of  the  works  of 
Razi,  especially  of  his  great  Hdwi  ox  '' Continens,"  is 
probably  the  most  repaying  field  to  which  the  Arabic 
scholar  interested  in  Medicine  can  devote  himself. 
Some  of  his  more  celebrated  and  sensational  cases  are 
recorded  in  such  collections  of  anecdotes  as  the  Arabic 
Kitdbu  I'Faraj  ba'da  ^ sh-Shidda  ("  Book  of  Relief  after 
Distress")  of  at-Tanukhi  (d.  a.d.  994),  and  the  Persian 
Chahdr  Maqdla  ("  Four  Discourses "),  compiled  by 
Nizami-i-'Ariidi  of  Samarqand  about  a.d.  1155.  Ibn 
Abi  Usaybi'a  says  in  his  Classes  of  Physicians^,  "There 
are  many  accounts  and  various  valuable  observa- 
tions by  ar-Razi  as  to  what  he  achieved  by  his  skill 
in  the  Art  of  Medicine,  his  unique  attainments  in  the 
healing  of  the  sick,  his  deduction  of  their  condition 
through  his  skill  in  prognosis,  and  the  information  which 
he  gave  as  to  their  symptoms  and  treatment,  unto  the 
like  of  which  but  few  physicians  have  attained.  He  has 
many  narratives  of  what  fell  within  his  experience  in 
these  and  like  matters,  which  are  contained  in  many  of 
his  works." 

Now  the  dozen  pages  in  the  Bodleian  ms.  referred 
to  above  (supposed  to  be  the  seventh  volume  of  the 
Ildwi,  but  agreeing  better  with  the  seventeenth  of  the 
Latin  translation^),  contain  precisely  such  clinical  notes 
as  are  mentioned   by  Ibn  Abi   Usaybi'a.     They  are 

^  Vol.  i,  p.  311. 

2  Book  vii  of  the  Latin  translation  is  entitled  De  passionibus  cordis 
et  epatis  et  splenis',  Book  xvii  De  effimera  et  ethica  i^  hectica). 


Clinical  Notes  of  A  r-Rdzi  5 1 

entitled  ''Illustrative  accounts  of  patients,  and  narra- 
tives of  unusual  cases  about  which  we  were  doubtful \" 
Some  twenty-four  cases  are  recorded,  the  full  names  of 
the  patients  being  usually  given,  with  the  symptoms, 
treatment  and  results.  They  are  not  easy  to  understand, 
the  Arabic  text  being  represented  by  one  manuscript 
only,  and  the  style,  apart  from  apparent  scribe's  errors, 
being  crabbed  and  technical.  The  first  case,  which  I 
interpret  as  well  as  I  can,  may  serve  as  a  specimen. 

^Lw     ^     lyA     w'j-'^     Ahi'w./t     OL.o».     0t>^     O^     <^'     J^     \^^     O^ 

^^15  t^l  AU  jIjuo  Jij  aJ:>  aIUS  o'  l5^'  *^^*^  3  l5>^*  l«-<9>« 
j-a1»  L5!5*i  0^^  SjJL^  O^  *^  3  *^  aJUwI   j^t   Lflul  01  c-Ai^l 

Jb  O  3  '4&t   *V.^    O'    L5-^'    ^^   ^^   "'^  «-^*^  '^    ^^  L5*^ 

ft 
2  MS.  jt^^S. 


52  Arabian  Medicine.    II 

sj\  .>ju  o^  ^  ^h^  t\^\  l^\  ^^  ^t  ^i  ^  j^> 

Ub  ptjjiJt  JJU9  ^  jjj  Ujj-  i^'  sioJt  Ob  ^^  5^  o^ 

aJU.  0>«^  ^  ^'  ^J^  JW  O'  J^  '>'^>rv^^  *U»^)t  v>«  i^j-^ 

'"Abdu'llah  ibn  Sawada  used  to  suffer  from  attacks  of  mixed 
fever,  sometimes  quotidian,  sometimes  tertian,  sometimes  quartan, 
and  sometimes  recurring  once  in  six  days.  These  attacks  were  pre- 
ceded by  a  slight  rigor,  and  micturition  was  very  frequent.  I  gave 
it  as  my  opinion  that  either  these  accesses  of  fever  would  turn  into 
quartan,  or  that  there  was  ulceration  of  the  kidneys.  Only  a  short 
while  elapsed  ere  the  patient  passed  pus  in  his  urine.  I  thereupon 
informed  him  that  these  feverish  attacks  would  not  recur,  and  so  it 
was. 

"The  only  thing  which  prevented  me  at  first  from  giving  it  as  my 
definite  opinion  that  the  patient  was  suffering  from  ulceration  of  the 
kidneys  was  that  he  had  previously. suffered  from  tertian  and  other 
mixed  types  of  fever,  and  this  to  some  extent  confirmed  my  suspicion 
that  this  mixed  fever  might  be  from  inflammatory  processes  which 
would  tend  to  become  quartan  when  they  waxed  stronger. 

"Moreover  the  patient  did  not  complain  to  me  that  his  loins  felt 
like  a  weight  depending  from  him  when  he  stood  up;  and  I  neglected 
to  ask  him  about  this.  The  frequent  micturition  also  should  have 
strengthened  my  suspicion  of  ulceration  of  the  kidneys,  but  I  did  not 
know  that  his  father  suffered  from  weakness  of  the  bladder  and  was 
subject  to  this  complaint,  and  it  used  likewise  to  come  upon  him  when 
he  was  healthy  \  and  it  ought  not  to  be  the  case  henceforth,  till  the  end 
of  his  life,  if  God  will. 

"So  when  he  passed  the  pus  I  administered  to  him  diuretics  until 
the  urine  became  free  from  pus,  after  which  I  treated  him  with  terra 
sigillata,  Boswellia  thurifera,  and  Dragon's  Blood,  and  his  sickness 
departed  from  him,  and  he  was  quickly  and  completely  cured  in  about 
two  months.  That  the  ulceration  was  slight  was  indicated  to  me  by 
the  fact  that  he  did  not  complain  to  me  at  first  of  weight  in  the  loins. 
After  he  had  passed  pus,  however,  I  enquired  of  him  whether  he  had 
experienced  this  symptom,  and  he  replied  in  the  affirmative.    Had  the 

^  I.e.  before  he  suffered  from  fever. 


'AH,  ibmtl-' Abbas  {''Hafy  Abbas'')  53 

ulceration  been  extensive,  he  would  of  his  own  accord  have  complained 
of  this  symptom.  And  that  the  pus  was  evacuated  quickly  indicated 
a  limited  ulceration.  The  other  physicians  whom  he  consulted  besides 
myself,  however,  did  not  understand  the  case  at  all,  even  after  the 
patient  had  passed  pus  in  his  urine." 

In  spite  of  several  difficulties,  both  verbal  and 
material,  which  I  have  not  yet  been  able  to  solve  to  my 
satisfaction,  the  general  nature  of  this  case  seems  fairly 
clear.  The  patient  suffered  from  intermittent  and  ir- 
regular attacks  of  fever  preceded  by  slight  rigors,  which, 
in  a  land  infested  with  ague,  were  diagnosed  and  treated 
as  malarial,  though  really  septic  in  origin.  R4zi  himself 
at  first  took  this  view,  but  subsequently,  observing  the 
presence  of  pus  in  the  urine,  diagnosed  the  case  as  one 
of  pyelitis,  and  treated  it  accordingly  with  success. 

We  now  come  to  the  third  name  in  our  list,  'Ali 
ibnu'l-'Abbis,  known  in  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages  as 
*'  Haly  Abbas,"  of  whose  Kztdbu  l-Maliki,  or  "  Liber 
Regius,"  the  Latin  translation  by  *'  Stephen  the  Philo- 
sopher," with  annotations  by  Michael  de  Capella,  was 
printed  at  Lyons  in  1523.  The  notice  of  him  given  by 
al-Qifti'  is  so  short  that  it  may  be  translated  in  full : 

'*Ali  ibnu'l-' Abbas  al-Majiisi  (the  Magian  or 
Zoroastrian),  an  accomplished  and  perfect  physician  of 
Persian  origin,  known  as  '  the  son  of  the  Magian.'  He 
studied  with  a  Persian  professor  (Shaykh)  known  as 
Abu  Mihir  [Musa  ibn  Sayyar],  and  also  studied  and 
worked  by  himself,  and  acquainted  himself  with  the 
writings  of  the  ancients.  He  composed  for  the  King 
'Adudu'd-Dawla  Fanakhusraw  the  Buwayhid'  his  Sys- 
tem of  Medicine  entitled  ^/-J/a/2>^/('' the  Royal"),  which 
is  a  splendid  work  and  a  noble  thesaurus  comprehending 
the  science  andpracticedf  Medicine,  admirably  arranged. 

^  p.  232.  ^  Reigned  949-982. 


BAM 


54  Arabian  Medicine,    II 

It  enjoyed  great  popularity  in  its  day  and  was  diligently 
studied,  until  the  appearance  of  Avicenna's  Qdniln, 
which  usurped  its  popularity  and  caused  the  Maliki  to 
be  somewhat  neglected.  The  latter  excels  on  the 
practical  and  the  former  on  the  scientific  side." 

The  Fihrist  no  longer  serves  us,  as  it  was  com- 
pleted at  a  date  antecedent  to  that  of  which  we  are  now 
speaking,  and  the  only  important  particular  added  by 
Ibn  Abi  Usaybi'a'  is  that  'All  ibnu'l-'Abbds  was  a 
native  of  Ahwdz  in  S.W.  Persia,  not  far  from  the  once 
great  medical  school  of  Jundi-Shapur  of  which  so  much 
was  said  in  the  last  lecture ;  while  his  nisba  or  title  of 
al-Majusi  indicates  that  his  father  or  grandfather  origi- 
nally belonged  to  the  old  Persian  religion  of  Zoroaster. 
Neither  he  nor  his  master  Abii  Mdhir  wrote  much;  the 
Maliki  is  the  only  work  ascribed  to  him  by  the  bio- 
graphers, though  Brockelmann^  mentions  a  ms.  at 
Gotha  containing  another  medical  treatise  attributed  to 
him,  while  only  two  works  by  his  master  are  mentioned, 
a  treatise  on  phlebotomy,  and  a  supplement  to  one  of 
Ishaq  ibn  Hunayn's  smaller  manuals  on  practical 
Medicine. 

Although  we  know  no  more  of  the  life  of  *Ali  ibnu 
'1-' Abbas  than  the  meagre  details  just  mentioned,  and  of 
his  date  only  that  he  was  contemporary  with  the  great 
and  enlightened  'Adudu'd-Dawla,  the  founder  of  the 
*Adudi  Hospital  at  Baghdad,  who  flourished  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  tenth  century,  his  work,  the  Maliki  or 
"  Liber  Regius,"  is  the  most  accessible  and  most  read- 
able of  the  great  Arabic  Systems, of  Medicine,  since  an 
excellent  edition  in  two  volumes  was  printed  at  Cairo 
in   1 294/1877,  and  the  Latin  version,  though  rare,  is 

^  Vol.  i,  pp.  236-7. 

^  Gesch.  d.  Arab.  Litt.^  vol.  i,  p.  237. 


Al-Kitabu'1-Maliki  {''Liber  Regius'')  55 

fortunately  not  included  amongst  the  Incunabula,  and 
can  therefore  be  borrowed  from  the  libraries  which 
possess  it.  The  Arabic  text  comprises  some  400,000 
words,  and  is  divided  into  20  Discourses,  each  sub- 
divided into  numerous  chapters,  of  which  the  first  ten 
deal  with  the  theory,  and  the  second  ten  with  the 
practice  of  Medicine.  The  second  and  third  of  these 
Discourses,  dealing  with  Anatomy,  have  been  published 
with  a  French  translation  by  Dr  P.  de  Koning  (Leyden, 
1903)  in  his  Trois  Trait ^s  d'Anatomie  Arabes  (pp. 
90-431).  The  nineteenth  Discourse,  containing  no 
chapters,  is  devoted  entirely  to  Surgery  \ 

The  introductory  portion  of  the  book,  comprising 
the  first  three  chapters  of  the  first  Discourse,  is  very 
well  written  and  very  interesting,  especially  the  criticism 
of  previous  works  on  Medicine.  Of  the  Greek  physicians 
he  discusses  especially  Hippocrates,  Galen,  Oribasius 
and  Paul  of  ^gina;  of  the  Syrians  and  Muslims, 
Ahriin  the  Priest,  Yuhanna  ibn  Serapion,  and  ar-Razi. 
He  finds  Hippocrates  too  concise  and  hence  sometimes 
obscure,  and  Galen  too  diffuse  ;  he  criticizes  Oribasius 
and  Paul  of  /^gina  for  omitting  or  dealing  inadequately 
with  Anatomy,  Surgery,  Natural  Philosophy,  Humoral 
Pathology,  and  the  Etiology  of  disease.  Of  the 
moderns  he  finds  the  work  of  Ahrun  alone  adequate  in 
its  scope,  but  complains  of  the  badness  and  obscurity 
of  the  Arabic  translation.  Ibn  Serapion,  he  says,  ignores 
Surgery,  omits  all  mention  of  many  important  diseases 
which  he  enumerates,  including  Aneurism,  and  arranges 
his  materials  badly  and  unsystematically.  I  have  already 
alluded  to  his  observations  on  the  enormous  size  and 
prolixity  of  Razi's  "Continens,"  which  placed  it  beyond 
the  reach  of  all  save  the  very  wealthy,  and  so  led  to  an 

^  pp.  454-516  of  vol.  ii  of  the  Cairo  edition. 
5-2 


56  Arabian  Medicine,   II 

extreme  scarcity  of  manuscripts,  even  within  a  short 
time  of  the  author's  death,  while  Razi's  other  and  better- 
known  work  the  Manstiri  he  finds  unduly  concise.  He 
then  explains  the  plan  of  his  own  book,  in  which  he 
seeks  to  find  a  via  media  between  undue  conciseness 
and  prolixity,  and  illustrates  his  method  by  a  specimen 
description  of  pleurisy.  He  begins  with  the  definition 
of  the  disease  and  its  aetiology  ;  then  proceeds  to  the 
four  constant  symptoms,  fever,  cough,  pain  and  dyspnoea; 
whence  he  passes  to  the  prognosis,  and  especially  the 
indications  furnished  by  the  sputa,  and  concludes  with 
the  treatment.  His  remarks  at  the  end  of  this  chapter 
on  the  importance  of  regular  attendance  at  the  hospitals 
are  worth  quoting\ 

"And  of  those  things  which  are  incumbent  on  the 
student  of  this  Art  are  that  he  should  constantly  attend 
the  hospitals  and  sick-houses ;  pay  unremitting  attention 
to  the  conditions  and  circumstances  of  their  inmates,  in 
company  with  the  most  acute  professors  of  Medicine; 
and  enquire  frequently  as  to  the  state  of  the  patients 
and  the  symptoms  apparent  in  them,  bearing  in  mind 
what  he  has  read  about  these  variations,  and  what  they 
indicate  of  good  or  evil.  If  he  does  this,  he  will  reach 
a  high  degree  in  this  Art.  Therefore  it  behoves  him 
who  desires  to  be  an  accomplished  physician  to  follow 
closely  these  injunctions,  to  form  his  character  in 
accordance  with  what  we  have  mentioned  therein,  and 
not  to  neglect  them.  If  he  does  this,  his  treatment  of 
the  sick  will  be  successful ;  people  will  have  confidence 
in  him  and  be  favourably  disposed  towards  him,  and  he 
will  win  their  affection  and  respect  and  a  good  reputa- 

^  Vol.  i,  p.  9.  The  corresponding  passage  in  the  Latin  translation 
occurs  in  the  upper  part  of  the  left-hand  column  of  f.  7^  of  the  Lyons 
edition  of  a.d.  1523. 


Fees  received  by  leading  Physicians  57 

tion ;  nor  withal  will  he  lack  profit  and  advantage  from 
them.    And  God  Most  High  knoweth  best." 

In  connection  with  the  concluding  words  of  the 
above  extract,  something  may  be  said  here  as  to  the 
fees  earned  by  one  of  the  most  eminent  physicians 
under  the  early  'Abbasid  Caliphs,  viz.  Jibrd'il  ibn 
Bukht-Yishu*,  who  died  about  a.d.  830.  According  to 
al-Qifti^  he  received  out  of  the  public  funds  a  monthly 
salary  of  10,000  dirhams,  and  from  the  Privy  Purse 
50,000  dirhams  at  the  beginning  of  each  year,  besides 
clothes  to  the  value  of  10,000  dirhams.  For  bleeding 
the  Caliph  Hdriinu'r-Rashid  twice  a  year  he  was  paid 
100,000  dirhams,  and  an  equal  sum  for  administering 
a  biennial  purgative  draught.  From  the  nobles  of  the 
Court  he  received  in  cash  and  kind  400,000  dirhams  a 
year,  and  from  the  great  Barmecide  family  1,400,000 
dirhams.  According  to  al-Qifti's  computation,  the  total 
amount  which  he  received  in  these  ways,  apart  from  what 
he  earned  privately  from  lesser  patients,  during  his  23 
years'  service  of  Hdrunu'r-Rashid  and  his  13  years' 
service  of  the  Barmecides,  amounted  to  88,800,000  dir- 
hams, a  sum  equivalent,  if  we  accept  von  Kremer* s^ 
estimate  of  the  dirham  as  roughly  equivalent  to  a  franc, 
to  more  than  three  and  a  half  million  pounds  sterling. 

I  come  now  to  the  last  and  most  famous  of  the  four 
Persian  physicians  of  whom  I  propose  to  speak  to-day, 
viz.  Avicenna,  or,  to  give  him  his  correct  name,  Abu 
'AH  Husayn  ibn  'Abdu'llah  ibn  Sind,  generally  entitled 
ash'Shaykhur-Rdis,  the  **  Chief  Master,"  or  al-Mu 
'alliwMth-Thdni,  the  "Second  Teacher,"  to  wit  after 
Aristotle.    The  difficulty  here  is  to  decide  what  to  say 

1  pp.  142-3. 

'  Culturgeschichte  d.  Orients,  vol.  i,  p.  15  ad  calc. 


58  Arabian  Medicine.    II 

out  of  so  much  that  deserves  mention,  for  in  Avicenna, 
philosopher,  physician,  poet  and  man  of  affairs,  the  so- 
called  Arabian  science  culminates,  and  is,  as  it  were, 
personified.  In  the  limits  prescribed  to  me  it  would  be 
impossible  to  enumerate  his  multitudinous  writings  on 
philosophy  and  science,  or  to  narrate  the  details  of  a 
life  of  which  he  himself  kept  a  record,  still  preserved 
to  us,  up  to  his  twenty-first  year,  and  of  which  the 
remainder  has  been  recorded  by  his  pupil  and  friend 
Abu  *Ubayd  of  Juzjan.  His  father,  an  adherent  of  the 
Isma'ili  sect,  was  from  Balkh  and  his  mother  from  a 
village  near  Bukhard,  and  he  was  born  about  a.d.  980. 
At  the  age  of  ten  he  was  already  proficient  in  the 
Qurdn  and  the  Arabic  classics.  During  the  six  succeed- 
ing years  he  devoted  himself  to  Muslim  Jurisprudence, 
Philosophy  and  Natural  Science,  and  studied  Logic, 
Euclid,  the  ^Eiaayayyt],  and  the  Almagest,  He  turned 
his  attention  to  Medicine  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  and 
found  it  "not  difficult,"  but  was  greatly  troubled  by 
metaphysical  problems,  until,  by  a  fortunate  chance,  he 
obtained  possession  of  a  small  and  cheap  manual  by 
the  celebrated  philosopher  al-F4rdbi,  which  solved  his 
difficulties.  When  he  was  not  much  more  than  eighteen 
years  old  his  reputation  as  a  physician  was  such  that  he 
was  summoned  to  attend  the  Sdmani  ruler  Niih  ibn 
Mansiir  (reigned  a.d.  976-997),  who,  in  gratitude  for 
his  services,  allowed  him  to  make  free  use  of  the  royal 
library,  which  contained  many  rare  and  even  unique 
books.  This  library  was  subsequently  destroyed  by  fire, 
and  Avicenna  s  detractors  did  not  scruple  to  assert  that 
he  himself  had  purposely  burned  it  so  as  to  enjoy  a 
monopoly  of  the  learning  he  had  derived  from  it.  At 
the  age  of  twenty-one  he  lost  his  father,  and  about  the 
same  time  composed  his  first  book.     He  entered  the 


Avicenna^s  Life  and  Adventures  59 

service  of  'All  ibn  Ma'miin,  the  ruler  of  Khwarazm  or 
Khiva,  for  a  while,  but  ultimately  fled  thence  to  avoid 
the  attempt  of  Sultin  Mahmiid  of  Ghazna  to  kidnap 
him.  After  many  wanderings  he  came  to  Jurjan, 
attracted  by  the  fame  of  its  ruler  Qdbus  as  a  patron  of 
learning,  but  the  deposition  and  murder  of  that  prince 
almost  coincided  with  his  arrival,  and  he  bitterly  ex- 
claimed in  a  poem  which  he  composed  on  this  occasion : 

i    6  ^  w  9  J     0  w 

^^When  I  became  great  no  country  had  room  for  me ; 
When  my  price  went  up  I  lacked  a  purchaser ^ 

Such  a  ''purchaser,"  however,  he  ultimately  found 
in  the  Amir  Shamsu'd-Dawla  of  Hamadan,  whom  he 
cured  of  the  colic,  and  who  made  him  his  Prime 
Minister.  A  mutiny  of  the  soldiers  against  him  caused 
his  dismissal  and  imprisonment,  but  subsequently  the 
Amir,  being  again  attacked  by  the  colic,  summoned 
him  back,  apologized  to  him,  and  reinstated  him.  His 
life  at  this  time  was  extraordinarily  strenuous;  all  day 
he  was  busy  with  the  Amir's  service,  while  a  great  part 
of  the  night  was  passed  in  lecturing  and  dictating  notes 
for  his  books,  with  intervals  of  wine-drinking  and 
minstrelsy.  After  many  vicissitudes,  which  time  forbids 
me  to  enumerate,  but  which  are  minutely  chronicled  by 
his  faithful  friend  and  disciple  Abu  'Ubayd  of  Jiizjan, 
Avicenna,  worn  out  by  hard  work  and  hard  living,  died 
in  428/1036-7  at  the  comparatively  early  age  of  58.  In 
his  last  illness  he  treated  himself  unsuccessfully,  so  that 
it  was  said  by  his  detractors  that  neither  could  his 
physic  save  his  body  nor  his  metaphysics  his  souP. 

^  The  verses  in  question  are  given  by  Ibn  Abi  Usaybi'a  {Taba- 
qdtu' l-Atibbd,  vol.  ii,  p.  6),  and  in  the  notes  to  my  forthcoming  trans- 
lation of  the  Chahdr  Maqdla  ("E.  J.  W.  Gibb  Memorial"  Series, 
vol.  xi,  2,  p.  156). 


6o  Arabian  Medicine.    II 

His  writings  were  numerous  and   in  many  cases 
voluminous,  some  of  his  major  works  comprising  as 
many  as  twenty  volumes.  The  professedly  complete  list 
of  them  given  by  al-Qifti'  includes  the  titles  of  2 1  major 
and  24  minor  works  on  philosophy,  medicine,  theology, 
geometry,  astronomy,  philology  and  the  like.     Most  of 
these  are  in  Arabic ;  but  in  Persian,  his  native  language, 
he  wrote  one  large  book,  a  manual  of  philosophical 
sciences  entitled  Ddnish-ndma-i-'Al(£i  (represented  by 
a  MS.  in  the  British  Museum^),  and  a  small  treatise  on 
the  Pulse.    The  list  given  by  Brockelmann  in  his  Ge- 
schichte  der  Arabischen  Litteratur  (vol.  i,  pp.  452-458), 
which  includes  only  extant  works,  is,  however,  much 
more  extensive  than  al-Qifti's,  and  comprises  68  books 
on  theology  and  metaphysics,    1 1   on  astronomy  and 
natural  philosophy,    16  on  medicine,  and  4  in  verse, 
99  books  in  all.     His  most  celebrated  Arabic  poem  is 
that  describing  the  descent  of  the  Soul  into  the  Body 
from  the  Higher  Sphere  ( fij^t  J*^0  which  is  its  home, 
a  poem  of  real  beauty,  of  which  a  translation  is  given 
in  my  Literary  History  of  Persia  (vol.  ii,  pp.  i  lo-i  1 1 ). 
The  industry  of  the  late  Dr  Eth^  has  also  collected 
from  various  biographical  works  1 5  short  Persian  poems, 
mostly  quatrains,  comprising  in  all  some  forty  verses, 
which  are  ascribed  to  Avicenna.     Of  these  the  best 
known  is  commonly,  but  probably  falsely,  ascribed  to 
*Umar  Khayydm,  at  least  one  fifth  of  whose  reputed 
quatrains  are  attributed  on  as  good  or  better  evidence 
to  other  people.    The  quatrain  in  question  is  the  one 
translated  by  FitzGerald: 

^  Ed.  Lippert,  p,  418. 

2  Or.  16,  830.  See  Rieu's  Pers.  Cat,  pp.  433-4.  Mr  A.  G.  Ellis 
has  called  my  attention  to  a  lithographed  edition  of  this  work,  pub- 
lished in  India  in  1309/1891. 


Avicenna's  Poems  6i 

''''Up  fr 0711  Earth's  Centre  through  the  Seventh  Gate 
I  rose  J  and  on  the  Throne  of  Saturn  sate, 
And  many  a  knot  unravelled  by  the  Road, 
But  not  the  Master-knot  of  Human  Fate^ 

The  original,  as  given  in  the  Majma'u  l-Fusahd},  runs 
as  follows: 

Of  Avicenna's  medical  works  exactly  half,  viz.  8,  are 
versified  treatises  on  such  matters  as  the  25  signs  indi- 
cating the  fatal  termination  of  illnesses,  hygienic  pre- 
cepts, proved  remedies,  anatomical  memoranda,  and  the 
like.  One  or  two  of  them  have  been  published  in  the 
East,  but  I  have  not  seen  them.  I  imagine,  however, 
that  they  are  of  little  value  either  as  verse  or  as  science. 
Of  his  prose  works,  after  the  great  Qdnicn,  the  treatise 
on  Cardiac  Drugs  (aIjLaJI  AJ^^^)t),  of  which  the  British 
Museum  possesses  several  fine  old  manuscripts,  is 
probably  the  most  important,  but  it  remains  unpublished, 
and  is  inaccessible  beyond  the  walls  of  that  and  a  few 
other  great  public  libraries  ^ 

The  Qdniln  is,  of  course,  by  far  the  largest,  the 
most  famous,  and  the  most  important  of  Avicenna's 
medical  works,  and  at  the  same  time  the  most  accessible, 
both  in  the  original  Arabic  and  in  the  Latin  translation 
of  Gerard  of  Cremona.  There  is  a  modern  Egyptian 
edition  of  the  Arabic  text,  besides  the  Roman  edition  of 
A.D.  1593;  and  a  fine  Venetian  translation  into  Latin 
published  in  1544.  The  work  contains  not  m.uch  less 
than  a  million  words,  and,  like  most  Arabic  books,  is 

1  Vol.  i,  p.  68. 

^  Berlin,  Gotha,  Leyden,  and  the  Escorial, 


62  Arabian  Medicine,    II 

elaborately  divided  and  subdivided.  The  main  division 
is  into  five  Books,  of  which  the  first  treats  of  general 
principles  ;  the  second  of  simple  drugs  arranged  alpha- 
betically ;  the  third  of  diseases  of  particular  organs  and 
members  of  the  body,  from  the  head  to  the  feet ;  the 
fourth  of  diseases  which,  though  local  and  partial  in 
their  inception,  tend  to  spread  to  other  parts  of  the  body, 
such  as  fevers ;  and  the  fifth  of  compound  medicines. 
These  descriptions  are  in  fact  very  inadequate.  Thus 
Book  IV  treats  not  only  of  fevers,  but  of  critical  days, 
prognosis,  tumours  and  ulcers,  fractures,  dislocations 
and  toxicology. 

I  had  intended  to  discuss  this  great  and  celebrated 
book  more  fully  than  the  time  at  my  disposal  to-day 
actually  allows,  but  this  is  of  the  less  consequence  inas- 
much as  the  College  has  done  me  the  honour  of  inviting 
me  to  deliver  the  FitzPatrick  lectures  again  next  year, 
when  I  hope  to  recur  to  it  in  connection  with  the  topics 
of  which  I  shall  then  have  to  treat.     Its  encyclopaedic 
character,  its  systematic  arrangement,  its  philosophic 
plan,  perhaps  even  its  dogmatism,  combined  with  the 
immense  reputation  of  its  author  in  other  fields  besides 
Medicine,  raised  it  to  a  unique  position  in  the  medical 
literature  of  the  Muslim  world,  so  that  the  earlier  works  of 
ar-Razi  and  al-Majilsi,  in  spite  of  their  undoubted  merits, 
were  practically  abrogated  by  it,  and  it  is  still  regarded 
in  the  East  by  the  followers  of  the  old  Greek  Medicine, 
the   Tibb-i'Yundni,  as  the  last  appeal  on  all  matters 
connected  with  the  healing  art.     In  proof  of  this  state- 
ment, and  to  show  the  extraordinary  reverence  in  which 
Avicenna  is  held,  I  will  conclude  with  a  quotation  from 
that  pleasant  work  the  Chahdr  Maqdla,  or  "  Four  Dis- 
courses," composed  in   Persian  in  the  middle  of  the 
twelfth  century  of  our  era,  and  dealing  with  four  classes 


The  Qdnun  of  Avicenna  63 

of  men,  to  wit  Secretaries  of  State,  Poets,  Astrologers 
and  Physicians,  deemed  by  the  author,  Nizami-i-'Ariidi 
of  Samarqand,  indispensable  for  the  service  of  kings. 
After  enumerating  a  number  of  books  which  should  be 
diligently  studied  by  him  who  aspires  to  eminence  in 
Medicine,  the  author  says  that  if  he  desires  to  be  in- 
dependent of  all  other  works  he  may  rest  satisfied  with 
the  Qdnun,  and  thus  continues^: 

"  The  Lord  of  the  two  Worlds  and  Guide  of  the 
two  Material  Races  saith :  '  Every  kind  of  game  is  com- 
prehended  in  the  Wild  Ass!  All  this,  together  with 
much  more,  is  to  be  found  in  the  Qdnun,  and  from  him 
who  hath  mastered  the  first  volume  thereof  nothing 
will  be  hidden  concerning  the  general  theory  and 
principles  of  Medicine,  so  that  could  Hippocrates  and 
Galen  return  to  life,  it  would  be  proper  that  they  should 
do  reverence  to  this  book.  Yet  have  I  heard  a  wonderful 
thing,  to  wit  that  one  hath  taken  exception  to  Abii  'All 
[Avicenna]  in  respect  to  this  work,  and  hath  embodied 
his  criticisms  in  a  book  which  he  hath  entitled  the 
Rectification  of  the  Qdnun^  It  is  as  though  I  looked 
upon  both,  and  saw  how  foolish  is  the  author  and  how 
detestable  his  work.  For  what  right  hath  anyone  to  find 
fault  with  so  great  a  man,  when  the  very  first  question 
he  meets  with  in  a  book  of  his  which  he  comes  across 
is  difficult  to  his  comprehension  "^  For  four  thousand 
years  the  physicians  of  antiquity  travailed  in  spirit  and 
spent  their  very  souls  in  order  to  reduce  the  science  of 

^  The  passage  cited  occurs  on  pp.  70-71  of  the  text  of  the  Chahdr 
Maqdla  published  in  19 10  in  the  "E.  J.  W.  Gibb  Memorial"  Series, 
vol.  xi,  and  on  pp.  iio-iii  of  the  separate  reprint  of  the  translation 
which  I  published  in  1899  in  \}i\&  Jouimal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society. 
In  my  new  revised  translation,  which  will  appear  shortly  as  vol.  xi,  2 
of  the  Gibb  Series,  it  will  be  found  on  pp.  79-80. 


64  Arabian  Medicine.    II 

Philosophy  to  some  fixed  order,  yet  could  they  not  effect 
this ;  until  after  the  lapse  of  this  period  that  pure  philo- 
sopher and  most  great  thinker  Aristotle  weighed  out  this 
coin  in  the  balance  of  Logic,  assayed  it  with  the  touch- 
stone of  Definitions,  and  measured  it  with  the  measure 
of  Analogy,  so  that  all  doubt  and  uncertainty  departed 
from  it,  and  it  was  established  on  a  sure  and  critical 
basis.  And  during  these  fifteen  centuries  which  have 
elapsed  since  his  time,  no  philosopher  has  won  to  the 
inmost  essence  of  his  doctrine,  nor  travelled  the  high 
road  of  his  pre-eminence  save  that  most  excellent  of 
the  moderns,  the  Philosopher  of  the  East,  the  Proof 
of  God  to  mankind,  Abii  *Ali  Husayn  ibn  'Abdu'llah 
ibn  Sind  [Avicenna].  Whosoever,  therefore,  finds  fault 
with  these  two  great  men  will  have  cast  himself  out 
from  the  fellowship  of  the  wise,  ranked  himself  with 
madmen,  and  revealed  himself  as  fit  company  only  for 
fools.  May  God  by  His  Grace  and  Favour  keep  us 
from  such  stumblings  and  vain  imaginings ! " 


LECTURE  III 

OEFORE  proceeding  further  with  my  subject,  it  may, 
perhaps,  be  well  that  I  should  recapitulate  very  briefly 
the  main  points  I  endeavoured  to  establish  in  the  two 
lectures  which  I  had  the  honour  of  delivering  before 
you  last  year.  I  pointed  out  that  the  term  ''Arabian 
Medicine"  (to  which  *' Islamic  Medicine"  would  be 
preferable)  can  be  justified  only  if  we  regard  the  language 
which  serves  as  its  vehicles  and  the  auspices  under  which 
it  was  evolved ;  that  it  was  an  eclectic  synthesis  of  more 
ancient  systems,  chiefly  Greek,  but  in  a  lesser  degree 
Indian  and  old  Persian,  with  a  tincture  of  other  exotic 
systems  less  easily  to  be  identified;  and  that  the 
Medicine  of  the  Arabian  people  at  the  time  of  their 
Prophet's  advent,  that  is  in  the  early  seventh  century 
of  the  Christian  era,  was,  as  it  continues  to  be,  of  the 
most  primitive  type.  In  this  connection  I  referred  to 
the  observations  of  Dr  Zwemer  in  his  Arabia,  the  Cradle 
of  Isldm,  and  I  must  now  add  a  reference  to  a  very 
interesting  little  book  in  Arabic  by  an  Egyptian  doctor, 
'Abdu'r-Rahmdn  Efendi  Isma'fl,  published  at  Cairo  in 
1892  or  1893,  on  the  popular  medicine  and  medical 
superstitions  of  his  countrymen,  and,  still  more,  of  his 
countrywomen.  This  system,  if  such  it  can  be  called,  is 
entitled  Tibbu  r-Rukka^ ,  roughly  equivalent  in  meaning 
to  "  Old  Wives'  Medicine,"  and  is  fiercely  exposed  and 
denounced  by  the  author,  who  regards  its  survival  until 

^  On  the  word  Rukka,  which  is  apparently  borrowed  from  the 
Italian  rocco,  see  an  interesting  observation  by  Vollers  in  vol.  xxi  of 
the  Z.  D.  M.  G.  (1897),  p.  322. 


66  Arabian  Medicine,    III 

the  present  day  in  a  country  like  Egypt,  supposed  to  be 
in  touch  with  modern  enlightenment,  as  an  abomination. 
In  the  development  of  Arabian  Medicine  in  the 
wider  sense,  that  is  to  say,  the  adaptation  of  ancient 
Greek  Medicine  to  the  general  system  of  civilization 
and  science  eclectically  built  up  by  Muslim  scholars  and 
thinkers  during  the  ''Golden  Prime"  of  the  Caliphate 
of  Baghdad,  namely  from  the  middle  of  the  eighth  century 
of  our  era  onwards,  I  distinguished  two  periods,  that 
of  the  translation  into  Arabic  of  the  masterpieces  of 
Greek  medical  literature,  destined  to  form  the  basis  of 
further  study;  and  that  of  the  Arabic-speaking  or  at 
any  rate  Arabic-writing  physicians  (many  of  whom 
were  Jews,  Christians,  Sabaeans  and  even  Zoroastrians), 
who,  checking  or  modifying  this  material  in  the  light  of 
their  own  experience,  produced  more  or  less  independent 
works.  Of  these  I  briefly  discussed  four  of  the  most 
notable  who  flourished  in  Persia  between  a.d.  850  and 
A.D.  1036,  the  year  in  which  died  Abu  *Ali  ibn  Sina, 
familiar  to  the  West  as  Avicenna,  the  three  others  being 
*Ali  ibn  Rabban,  who  composed  his  ''Paradise  of  Wis- 
dom" for  the  Caliph  al-Mutawakkil  in  a.d.  850;  Abii 
Bakr  Muhammad  ibn  Zakariyya  ar-Rdzi,  familiar  to 
medieval  Europe  as  Rhazes;  and  'Ali  ibnu'l-'Abbas  al- 
Majusi,  called  by  the  Latino- Barbari  of  the  Middle 
Ages  "  Haly  Abbas."  I  briefly  described  four  of  the  chief 
works  of  these  four  great  physicians,  namely  the  "  Para- 
dise of  Wisdom"  (which,  from  its  extreme  rarity,  has 
hitherto  remained  unnoticed  outside  the  Arabic  Cata- 
logues of  the  British  Museum  and  Berlin)  ;  the  Hdwi 
or  "Continens";  the  Kdmilus-Sind^at  or  "Liber  Re- 
gius"; and  the  Qdnun  or  "Canon  of  Medicine"  of 
Avicenna.  I  further  expressed  my  agreement  with  the 
view,  advanced  by  Neuburger,  Pagel  and  other  historians 


Early  Muslims^  Love  of  Learning  67 

of  Medicine,  that,  notwithstanding  the  greater  celebrity 
achieved  by  Avicenna,  Razi,  by  virtue  of  his  clinical 
observations  (some  of  which  are  preserved  to  us  in  a 
manuscript  volume  of  the  Hdwi  in  the  Bodleian  Library  ^), 
deserves  to  rank  highest  of  the  four,  and  perhaps  of  all 
the  physicians  produced  by  Isldm  during  the  thirteen 
centuries  of  its  existence.  To  his  work,  and  to  that  of 
the  three  other  physicians  just  mentioned,  I  would 
gladly  recur,  should  the  brief  time  at  my  disposal  allow, 
but  other  matters  connected  with  the  history,  literature 
and  status  of  Medicine  in  the  Muslim  world  demand 
prior  consideration,  so  that  the  whole  field  may  be  sur- 
veyed before  any  attempt  is  made  to  fill  in  details. 

It  has  been  already  pointed  out  that  the  Muslims 
were  rather  the  faithful  transmitters  of  the  ancient 
learning  of  Greece  than  the  creators  of  a  new  system. 
Withington,  in  his  excellent  little  Medical  History'^, 
puts  the  case  so  well  that  I  cannot  do  better  than  quote 
his  words.  ''  This  display  of  physical  vigour,"  he  says, 
after  describing  the  wonderful  conquests  of  the  Arabs 
in  the  seventh  century,  "  was  followed  by  an  intellectual 
activity  hardly  less  wonderful.  A  Byzantine  emperor 
was  astonished  to  find  that  the  right  of  collecting  and 
purchasing  Greek  manuscripts  was  among  the  terms 
dictated  by  a  victorious  barbarian,  and  that  an  illustrated 
copy  of  Dioscorides  was  the  most  acceptable  present 
he  could  offer  to  a  friendly  chieftain.  The  philosophers 
of  Constantinople  were  amazed  by  the  appearance  of 
Muslim  writers  whom  they  styled  with  reluctant  ad- 
miration *  learned  savages,'  while  the  less  cultured 
Christians  soon  came  to  look  upon  the  wisdom  of  the 
Saracens  as  something  more  than  human.     It  was  this 

^  Marsh  156,  ff.  239  ^-246  a.  See  pp.  50-3  supra. 
^  The  Scientific  Press,  London,  1894,  pp.  138-9. 


68  Arabian  Medicine.    Ill 

people  who  now  took  from  the  hands  of  unworthy  suc- 
cessors of  Galen  and  Hippocrates  the  flickering  torch 
of  Greek  medicine.  They  failed  to  restore  its  ancient 
splendour,  but  they  at  least  prevented  its  extinction,  and 
they  handed  it  back  after  five  centuries  burning  more 
brightly  than  before." 

'*  Five  centuries,"  however,  is  an  over-statement, 
for  while  Avicenna  was  still  in  the  prime  of  life  there 
was  born  in  North  Africa,  probably  in  Tunis,  a  man 
of  whose  biography  little  is  known,  but  who  was  destined 
to  become  famous,  under  the  name  of  Constantinus  Afri- 
canus,  as  the  first  to  make  known  to  Western  Europe 
the  learning  of  the  Arabs  through  the  medium  of  the 
Latin  tongue\  He  attached  himself  to  the  celebrated 
medical  school  of  Salerno — the  '*Civitas  Hippocratica" — 
and  died  at  Monte  Casino,  after  a  life  of  great  literary 
activity,  about  a.d.  1087,  exactly  a  century  before  the 
still  more  famous  Oriental.scholar  and  translator  Gerard 
of  Cremona.  To  these  two,  and  to  the  Jewish  physician 
Faraj  ibn  Sdlim  (Fararius  or  Faragut),  who  completed 
his  translation  of  the  ''Continens"  of  Rdzi  in  a.d.  1279, 
medieval  Europe  was  chiefly  indebted  for  its  knowledge 
of  Arabian  Medicine. 

The  transmission  of  ideas  between  East  and  W^st 
was  effected,  however,  through  other  than  literary 
channels.  However  great  may  have  been  the  bitterness 
of  feeling  on  both  sides  associated  with  the  Crusades,  it 
is  astonishing  how  much  friendly  intercourse  took  place 
in  the  intervals  of  fighting  between  the  Crusaders  and 
their  Saracen  antagonists.  Amongst  many  somewhat 
arid  chronicles  there  has  been  preserved  to  us,   and 

^  See  an  article  on  his  work  in  vol.  xxxvii  (pp.  351-410)  of  Vir- 
chow's  Archiv  (Berlin,  1866)  by  that  most  erudite  Orientalist  Moritz 
Steinschneider. 


Saracen  Scorn  of  Prankish  Medicine  69 

rendered  available  by  M.  Hartwig  Derenbourg  in  the 
original  Arabic  accompanied  by  a  French  translation^, 
the  illuminating  memoirs  of  a  Saracen  Amir  named 
Usdma  ibn  Munqidh,  who  flourished  in  Syria  in  the 
twelfth  century,  and  spent  most  of  his  life  in  fighting  the 
Franks.  He  was  born  in  a.d.  1095,  the  very  year  in  which 
the  Crusaders  captured  Antioch  and  Jerusalem,  and  died 
in  A.D.  1 188.  It  was  during  a  temporary  lull  in  the 
fighting  between  a.d.  i  140  and  1 143  that  his  intercourse 
with  the  Franks  chiefly  fell.  In  his  discursive  but 
entertaining  memoirs  he  discusses  many  of  their  customs 
and  characteristics  which  seemed  to  him  curious  or  enter- 
taining, andamongst  other  matters  relates  several  strange 
stories  about  their  medical  practiced  At  the  request  of 
the  Frankish  Warden  of  the  Castle  of  Munaytira  in  the 
Lebanon,  Usama's  uncle  sent  his  Christian  physician 
Thdbit  to  treat  certain  persons  who  lay  sick  there.  Ten 
days  later  Thdbit  returned,  and  was  greeted  with  con- 
gratulations on  the  rapidity  with  which  he  had  cured 
his  patients.  For  these  congratulations,  however,  there 
was,  as  he  explained,  no  occasion.  On  his  arrival  they 
introduced  to  him  two  patients,  a  man  suffering  from  an 
abscess  in  the  leg,  and  a  consumptive  woman.  These  he 
proceeded  to  treat,  the  first  by  poultices,  the  second  by 
suitable  diet  and  drugs.  Both  were  progressing  satis- 
factorily when  a  Frankish  doctor  intervened,  and,  de- 
nouncing the  treatment  pursued  as  useless,  turned  to 
the  male  patient  and  asked  him  whether  he  would  prefer 
to  die  with  two  legs  or  to  live  with  one.  The  patient 
expressed  his  preference  for  the  second  alternative, 
whereupon  the  Frankish  doctor  summoned  a  stalwart 

^  Leroux,  Paris,  1886-1893. 

'^  These  will  be  found  on  pp.  97-101   of  the  Arabic  text  and 
pp.  491-4  of  the  French  translation. 

BAM      6 


JO  Arabian  Medicine.    Ill 

man-at-arms  with  an  axe,  and  bade  him  chop  off  the 
patient's  leg  at  one  blow.  This  he  failed  to  do,  and  at 
the  second  blow  the  marrow  was  crushed  out  of  the 
bone  and  the  patient  almost  immediately  expired.  The 
Prankish  doctor  then  turned  his  attention  to  the  woman, 
and,  after  examining  her,  declared  her  to  be  possessed 
of  a  devil  which  was  located  in  her  head.  He  ordered 
her  hair  to  be  shaved  off  and  that  she  should  return  to 
the  ordinary  diet  of  her  compatriots,  garlic  and  oil ;  and 
when  she  grew  worse  he  made  a  deep  cruciform  incision 
on  her  head,  exposing  the  bone,  and  rubbed  salt  into 
the  wound,  whereupon  the  woman  also  expired.  "  After 
this,"  concluded  Thibit,  *'  I  asked  if  my  services  were 
any  longer  required,  and,  receiving  a  negative  answer, 
returned  home,  having  learned  of  their  medical  practice 
what  had  hitherto  been  unknown  to  me." 

Usama  relates  another  similar  anecdote  on  the  au- 
thority of  Guillaume  de  Bures\  with  whom  he  travelled 
from  Acre  to  Tiberias.  ^' There  was  with  us  in  our 
country,"  said  Guillaume,  "a  very  doughty  knight,  who 
fell  ill  and  was  at  the  point  of  death.  As  a  last  resource 
we  applied  to  a  Christian  priest  of  great  authority  and 
entrusted  the  patient  to  him,  saying,  *  Come  with  us  to 
examine  such-and-such  a  knight.'  He  agreed  and  set  off 
with  us.  Our  belief  was  that  he  had  only  to  lay  hands 
upon  him  to  cure  him.  As  soon  as  the  priest  saw  the 
patient,  he  said,  '  Bring  me  wax.'  We  brought  him 
some,  and  he  softened  it  and  made  [two  plugs]  like  the 
joints  of  a  finger,  each  of  which  he  thrust  into  one  of 
the  patient's  nostrils  ;  whereupon  he  expired.  '  He  is 
dead,'  we  exclaimed.  'Yes,'  replied  the  priest;  'he  was 
suffering,  and  I  plugged  his  nostrils  so  that  he  might 
die  and  be  at  peace!'" 

^  Op.  cit,  text,  p.  loij  translation,  p.  494. 


Medicine  amongst  the  Crusaders  7 1 

To  the  Arabs  of  that  period,  then,  as  we  can  well 
understand,  Prankish  medicine  appeared  most  barbarous 
and  primitive  compared  with  their  own;  and  it  is  not 
surprising  that,  when  Usama  was  himself  attacked  by 
a  chill  accompanied  by  rigors  at  Shayzar,  he  preferred 
the  services  of  an  Arab  physician,  Shaykh  Abu'1-Wafa 
Tamim,  to  those  of  a  Prankish  doctor\  Yet,  in  justice 
to  the  Pranks,  he  relates  two  cases  of  successful 
treatment  by  their  medical  practitioners;  one  of  a 
certain  Bernard,  treasurer  to  Count  Poulques  of 
Anjou,  whom  Usdma  describes  as  ''one  of  the  most 
accursed  of  the  Pranks  and  the  foulest  of  them,"  whose 
death  he  earnestly  desired  and  prayed  for^;  and  the 
other  of  the  scrofulous  child  of  an  Arab  artisan  named 
Abu  1- Path  I  The  former  suffered  from  an  injury  to  the 
leg  caused  by  a  kick  from  his  horse,  and  fourteen 
incisions  had  been  made  which  refused  to  heal  until 
the  Prankish  doctor  finally  consulted  removed  all  the 
ointments  and  plasters  which  had  been  applied  to  the 
wounds,  and  bathed  them  with  very  strong  vinegar,  as 
a  result  of  which  treatment  they  gradually  healed,  and 
the  patient,  to  quote  Usdma's  expression,  "was  cured 
and  arose  like  the  Devil,"  or,  as  we  should  say,  ready 
for  any  fresh  mischief  The  scrofulous  boy  had  been 
taken  to  Antioch  by  his  father,  who  had  business  there, 
and  aroused  the  compassion  of  a  Prank  with  whom 
they  foregathered.  '*  Swear  to  me  by  thy  faith,"  said  he 
to  the  father,  ''that,  if  I  impart  to  thee  a  remedy  to  heal 
him,  thou  wilt  accept  no  pecuniary  recompense  from 
anyone  whom  thou  mayst  treat  therewith,  and  I  will 
give  thee  the  recipe."    The  father  gave  the  required 

Op.  cit.j  text,  p.  137;  translation,  p.  491. 
cii.^  text,  D.  q8:  translation,  dd.  4.02-' 


6-2 


Up.  at. J  text,  p.  137;  translation,  p.  491. 
^  Op.  cii.,  text,  p.  98;  translation,  pp.  492-3. 
^  Op.  cit.y  text,  pp.  98-9;  translation,  pp.  493-4 


72  Arabian  Medicine.   Ill 

assurance,  and  was  instructed  to  take  unpounded  soda, 
heat  it  and  mix  it  with  olive  oil  and  strong  vinegar,  and 
apply  the  mixture  to  the  strumous  ulcers  in  the  child's 
neck,  this  to  be  followed  by  the  application  of  what 
Usama  calls  "burnt  lead"  mixed  with  butter  or  grease. 
The  boy,  we  read,  was  cured,  and  the  same  treatment 
was  subsequently  employed  with  success  in  other  cases. 
The  above  anecdotes  do  not  exhaust  the  medical 
material  contained  in  these  interesting  memoirs.   There 
was  a  somewhat  notable  Arab  Christian  physician  named 
Ibn  Butlan  who  died  about  a.d.  1063,  and  was  the  author 
of  numerous  medical  works  (enumerated  by  Leclerc' 
and  Brockelmann^),  of  the  most  celebrated  of  which,  the 
Taqwimu  s-Sihha,  a  Latin  translation  entitled  Tacuini 
Sanitatis  was  printed  at   Strassburg  in  a.d.    1531   or 
1532.    A  copy  of  this  work  is  included  amongst  the 
Arabic  mss.  of  this  college.    Ibn  Butlin,  in  the  course 
of  his  extensive  travels,  was  for  a  time  in  attendance  on 
Usama's  great-grandfather  at  Shayzar,  and  our  author 
records  some  of  the  anecdotes  about  him  still  current  in 
the  household  when  he  was  young.    One  of  these  is  of 
a  dropsical  man  whose  case  Ibn  Butldn  gave  up  as 
hopeless,  and  whom  he  subsequently  met  completely 
cured  of  his  malady.    In  reply  to  enquiries  as  to  the 
treatment  which  had  proved  so  successful,  the  man 
declared  no   one   had  attempted  to    do  anything  to 
alleviate  his  misery  except  his  old  mother,  who  had 
daily  given  him  a  piece  of  bread  soaked  in  vinegar 
which  she  took  from  a  jar.    Ibn  ButUn  asked  to  see  the 
jar,  poured  out  the  remains  of  the  vinegar,  and  dis- 
covered at  the  bottom  two  vipers  which  had  fallen  into 
it  and  become  partly  macerated  or  dissolved.    ''  O  my 

^  Hist,  de  la  Medecine  Arabe^  vol.  i,  pp.  489-492. 
"  Gesch.  d.  Arab.  LUt.^  vol.  i,  p.  483. 


Medicine  in  Arabic  Literature  73 

son,"  he  exclaimed,  ''none  but  God,  mighty  and  glorious 
is  He,  could  have  cured  thee  with  a  decoction  of  vipers 
in  vinegar^ ! " 

On  another  occasion  a  man  came  to  Ibn  Butldn  in 
his  surgery  at  Aleppo  complaining  of  hoarseness  and 
complete  loss  of  voice,  and  stating  in  reply  to  enquiries 
as  to  his  occupation  that  he  was  a  sifter  of  earth.  Ibn 
Butlan  made  him  drink  half  a  pint  of  strong  vinegar, 
whereupon  he  was  presently  seized  with  vomiting  and 
threw  up  a  quantity  of  mud  with  the  vinegar,  after 
which  his  throat  was  cleared  and  his  speech  became 
normal.  Ibn  Butlan  said  to  his  son  and  his  pupils  who 
were  present,  "  Treat  no  one  with  this  remedy  or  you 
will  kill  him.  As  for  this  man,  some  of  the  dust  from 
the  sieve  had  stuck  in  his  gullet  and  nothing  but  vinegar 
could  have  dislodged  it"." 

I  have  already  observed  how  general  was  the 
interest  taken  in  medical  topics  in  the  medieval  Muslim 
world.  A  very  popular  branch  of  literature,  both  in 
Arabic  and  Persian,  was  constituted  by  collections  of 
strange  and  quaint  anecdotes,  called  Nawddir,  in  which 
the  historical  or  quasi-historical  stories  are  grouped 
under  appropriate  headings.  In  such  books  a  special 
section  is  often  devoted  to  Medicine  and  Physicians. 
The  material  thus  afforded,  though  it  has  not  hitherto 
attracted  much  attention,  appears  to  me  worthy  of  some 
notice. 

One  of  the  older  Arabic  books  of  this  sort  is  a  work 
entitled  al-Faraj  ba'da  ' sh-Shidda  ("Joy  after  Sorrow," 
or  better,  perhaps,  "Relief  after  Distress")  by  the  Qadi 
Abu  'All  at-Tanukhi,  who  was  born  in  a.d.  939  and 

^  Op.  cii.^  text,  p.  135;  translation,  pp.  488-9. 
^  Op.  cit.^  text,  pp.  135-6;  translation,  p.  489. 


74  Arabian  Medicine,   III 

died  in  a.d.  994.  This  book  was  printed  in  Cairo  in 
1903-4  in  two  volumes.  It  comprises  14  chapters,  of 
which  the  tenth  (pp.  94-104  of  vol.  ii)  deals  with 
remarkable  cases  and  contains  15  anecdotes,  some  of 
which  are  trivial  or  disgusting,  while  others  are  of  con- 
siderable interest.  Two  of  them,  which  I  shall  notice 
first,  are  connected  with  the  great  physician  Abii  Bakr 
Muhammad  ibn  Zakariyya  ar-Rdzi  (Rhazes)  of  whom 
I  spoke  last  year  in  the  second  of  my  two  lectures,  and 
with  whom  our  author  was  almost  contemporary. 

The  first  of  these ^  is  about  a  young  man  of  Baghdad 
who  came  to  Rhazes  complaining  of  haematemesis. 
Careful  examination  failed  to  reveal  the  cause  or  explain 
the  symptom.  The  patient  was  in  despair,  believing 
that  where  Rhazes  failed,  none  could  succeed.  Rhazes, 
touched  alike  by  his  distress  and  his  faith,  then  pro- 
ceeded to  question  him  very  carefully  as  to  the  water 
he  had  drunk  on  his  journey,  and  ascertained  that  in 
some  cases  it  had  been  drawn  from  stagnant  ponds. 
''When  I  come  to-morrow,"  said  he  to  the  patient,  '*I 
will  treat  you,  and  not  leave  you  until  you  are  cured,  on 
condition  that  you  will  order  your  servants  to  obey  me 
in  all  that  I  command  them  concerning  thee."  The 
patient  gave  the  required  promise,  and  Rhazes  returned 
next  day  with  two  vessels  filled  with  a  water-weed 
called  in  Arabic  Tuhlub  and  in  Persian  Jd^na-i-Ghuk 
("Frog's  coat")  or  Pashm-i-Wazagh'^  (''Frog's  wool"), 
which  he  ordered  the  patient  to  swallow.  The  patient, 
having  swallowed   a   considerable  quantity,   declared 

^  Vol.  ii,  p.  96.  The  story  is  also  given  by  Ibn  Abi  Usaybi'a, 
vol.  i,  pp.  31 1-3 1 2. 

^  Identified  by  Achundow  (pp.  231  and  383)  with  Lemna  or  Herba 
Lentis  Palustris^  the  ^aKos  of  Dioscorides,  in  German  Wasserlinde.  At 
the  present  day  it  is  called  by  the  V ox^izxi^  Jul-i-Wazagh. 


Celebrated  Cures  of  R hazes  75 

himself  unable  to  take  any  more,  whereupon  Rhazes 
ordered  the  servants  to  hold  him  on  his  back  on  the 
ground  and  open  his  mouth,  into  which  he  continued 
to  cram  more  and  more  of  the  nauseous  substance  until 
violent  vomiting  ensued.  Examination  of  the  vomit 
revealed  a  leech  which  was  the  source  of  the  trouble, 
and  with  the  expulsion  of  which  the  patient  regained 
his  health.  This  same  anecdote  occurs  in  the  Persian 
collection  of  stories  by  'Awfi  of  which  I  shall  shortly 
speak,  and  it  is  there  added  that  the  leech  when  swallowed 
in  the  drinking-water  had  attached  itself  to  the  mouth 
of  the  patient's  stomach  and  there  remained  until  in- 
duced to  transfer  itself  to  the  more  congenial  water- 
weed. 

In  the  next  anecdote^  Rhazes  is  represented  as 
describing  the  case  of  a  dropsical  boy  whose  father 
consulted  him  at  Bistam  in  N.E.  Persia  as  he  was 
returning  from  his  celebrated  cure  of  the  Amir  of 
Khurdsan^  for  whom  he  composed  his  ''Liber  Alman- 
soris."  Rhazes  declared  the  case  to  be  hopeless,  and 
advised  the  father  to  let  his  son  eat  and  drink  whatever 
he  pleased.  Twelve  months  later  he  returned  to  the 
same  town,  and,  to  his  great  astonishment,  found  the 
boy  completely  restored  to  health.  On  enquiring  how 
this  had  come  about,  he  was  told  that  the  boy,  de- 
spairing of  health  and  life,  and  wishing  to  put  an  end  to 
his  existence,  had  one  day  observed  a  great  snake 
approach  a  bowl  of  madira  (a  kind  of  broth  prepared 
with  sour  milk)  which  was  standing  on  the  ground, 
drink  some  of  it,  and  then  vomit  into  the  rest,  which 

^  Al-Faraj\vo\.  ii,  pp.  103-104,  and  Ibn  Abi  Usaybi'a,vol.  i,  p.  312. 

-  Really  the  governor  of  Ray,  Mansilr  ibn  Ishaq  ibn  Ahmad.  See 
my  translation  of  the  Chahdr  Maqdla  ("E.  J.  W.  Gibb  Memorial" 
Series,  xi,  2,  p.  150). 


76  Arabian  Medicine,    III 

shortly  changed  colour.  Thinking  to  put  an  end  to  his 
life  with  this  poisonous  mixture  he  consumed  the  greater 
part  of  it,  after  which  he  fell  into  a  deep  sleep,  from  which 
he  awoke  in  a  copious  perspiration,  and,  after  violent 
purging,  found  that  he  was  quit  of  his  dropsy  and  his 
appetite  had  returned. 

A  third  anecdote  similar  to  the  last,  related  by  a 
man  named  Abu  *Ali  *Umar  ibn  Yahyi  al-*Alawi\  con- 
cerns a  fellow-pilgrim  from  Kiifa  who  suffered  from 
dropsy  and  was  kidnapped  with  his  camel  by  Arab 
marauders.  One  day  his  captors  entered  the  hut  where 
he  was  lying,  bringing  some  snakes  which  they  had 
caught,  and  which  they  proceeded  to  roast  and  eat  after 
they  had  cut  off  their  heads  and  tails.  He,  hoping  that 
this  unaccustomed  food  would  poison  him,  craved  a 
portion  and  ate  it,  when,  after  experiencing  precisely  the 
same  symptoms  as  the  sufferer  mentioned  in  the  last 
story,  he  similarly  found  himself  cured  of  his  sickness. 

A  fourth  anecdote^  is  of  a  boy  who  suffered  from 
violent  pain  and  throbbing  in  the  stomach  for  which 
no  cause  or  cure  could  be  found,  though  he  was 
examined  by  many  physicians  of  Ahwaz  in  S.  W.  Persia, 
a  well-known  town  situated  near  the  once  famous 
medical  school  of  Jundi-Shdpiir,  of  which  I  spoke 
in  a  previous  lecture.  Finally  he  was  sent  home,  and 
there  a  passing  physician,  not  named,  cross-examined 
him  at  length  and  discovered  that  his  ailment  dated 
from  a  day  when  he  had  eaten  pomegranates  stored  in 
a  cow-house.  The  physician  next  day  brought  him 
broth  made  with  the  flesh  of  a  fat  puppy,  and  bade  him 
take  as  much  as  he  could  of  it,  while  refusing  to  make 
known  its  nature.  Then  he  gave  him  to  eat  a  quantity 
of  melon,  and  two  hours  later  beer  mixed  with  hot 

^  Al-Faraj\  vol.  ii,  p.  loo.  ^  Ibid.y  vol.  ii,  pp.  96-7. 


Dropsy  cured  by  a  Diet  of  Locusts  yy 

water,  after  which  he  informed  him  how  the  broth  had 
been  prepared.  Thereupon  the  patient  was  violently 
sick,  and  in  his  vomit  the  physician  presently  discovered 
''a  black  thing  like  a  large  date-stone  which  moved," 
and  which  proved  to  be  a  sheep-  or  cattle-tick  which  had 
entered  the  pomegranate,  been  accidentally  swallowed 
by  the  boy,  and  attached  itself  to  the  coats  of  his 
stomach,  from  which,  like  the  leech  in  a  previous  anec- 
dote, it  was  induced  to  detach  itself  by  being  presented 
with  a  more  attractive  substance. 

The  case  of  another  dropsical  patient  forms  the 
subject  of  a  fifth  of  these  anecdotes.  He  was,  after 
being  dosed  with  various  drugs,  pronounced  incurable 
by  the  physicians  of  Baghdad,  and  thereupon  begged 
that  he  might  be  allowed  to  eat  and  drink  what  he 
pleased,  and  not,  as  he  expressed  it,  be  *'  destroyed  by 
dieting."  One  day  he  saw  a  man  selling  cooked  locusts, 
of  which  he  bought  and  ate  a  large  quantity.  Violent 
purging  followed  this  repast  and  lasted  three  days,  at 
the  end  of  which  he  was  so  weak  that  his  life  was 
despaired  of,  but  he  gradually  recovered  and  was  en- 
tirely cured  of  his  dropsy.  On  the  fifth  day,  being  able  to 
walk  abroad,  he  met  one  of  the  physicians  who  had  seen 
him  before,  and  who  was  amazed  at  his  recovery,  about 
v/hich  he  questioned  him.  '*  These  were  no  ordinary 
locusts,"  said  the  physician,  when  he  had  heard  the  story; 
"  I  should  like  you  to  point  out  to  me  the  man  who  sold 
them  to  you."  The  seller  being  found  and  questioned, 
said  that  he  collected  the  locusts  in  a  village  some  miles 
from  Baghdad,  whither,  for  a  small  reward,  he  accom- 
panied the  physician,  who  found  the  locusts  in  a 
field  in  which  grew  quantities  of  the  herb  called 
Mddharyun  (identified  by  Schlimmer  and  Achundow 
as  Daphne  oleoides,  the  Laurel-spurge  or  Spurge-flax), 


yS  Arabian  Medicine.    Ill 

known  to  be  beneficial  in  small  doses  for  dropsy,  but 
too  dangerous  to  be  commonly  prescribed\  The  double 
coction  which  it  had  undergone  in  the  locusts'  bodies 
had,  however,  so  mitigated  its  violence  that  its  results 
had  in  this  case  proved  wholly  beneficial. 

Other  anecdotes  in  this  book,  on  which  I  have  not 
time  to  dwell,  include  a  cure  of  apoplexy  by  flagellation, 
of  pleurisy  by  a  scorpion-bite,  and  of  paralysis  by  a 
decoction  of  colocynth  in  milk. 

The  Persian  collection  of  anecdotes  to  which  I 
alluded  above  was  compiled  by  Muhammad  'Awfi 
about  A.D.  1230,  and  is  enUXXe^d  Jawdmi'u  l-Hikdydt  wa 
Lawdmi'u  r-Riwdydt.  It  is  a  gigantic  work,  comprising 
four  volumes,  each  consisting  of  twenty-five  chapters, 
and  has  never  yet  been  published;  but  I  am  fortunate 
enough  to  possess  one  complete  ms.  and  another  of 
the  first  volume.  The  twentieth  chapter  of  this  volume 
concerns  Physicians,  and  comprises  nine  anecdotes,  four 
of  which  are  taken  from  at-Tamikhi's  work  *'  Relief  after 
Distress,"  described  above.  In  only  one  of  the  five  new 
stories  is  mention  made  of  Rhazes,  who  is  represented 
as  curing  a  patient  of  intussusception  or  obstruction  of 
the  intestines  by  giving  him  two  drachms  of  quicksilver. 
In  the  remaining  anecdotes  there  is  little  worth  notice 
except  one  aphorism  and  one  story.  The  aphorism, 
uttered  by  an  unnamed  physician  to  a  patient,  is  as 
follows :  '*  Know  that  I  and  thou  and  the  disease  are 
three  factors  mutually  antagonistic.  If  thou  wilt  side 
with  me,  not  neglecting  what   I   enjoin  on  thee  and 

^  See  the  Qdnicn  of  Avicenna  (ed.  Rome,  1593),  p.  205,  and  the 
Latin  translation  (Venice,  1544),  p.  147,  where  two  drachms  of  this 
*'Mezereon"  are  said  to  be  fatal  to  man.  In  the  Burhdn-i-Qdti^  and 
the  Farhang-i-Ndsirl  the  form  Mdzaryicn  (with  j  instead  of  i)  is 
given. 


Early  Traditions  of  Anaesthesia  79 

refraining  from  such  food  as  I  shall  forbid  thee,  then  we 
shall  be  two  against  one  and  will  overcome  the  disease." 
The  story,  which  concerns  Aristotle  and  an  Indian 
physician  named  Sarbat  or  Sarnab — who  came  to  him 
incognito  as  a  disciple  in  order  to  study  his  methods, 
but  revealed  himself  at  a  critical  stage  in  the  trephining 
of  a  patient — is  a  very  absurd  one,  about  a  millipede  or 
ear-wig  {Jiazdr-pdy  or  gllsh-khurak)  which  entered  the 
patient's  ear  and  attached  itself  to  his  brain.  The  in- 
teresting point  in  it  is  that,  before  beginning  the  opera- 
tion, Aristotle  ''gave  him  a  drug  so  that  he  became 
unconscious."  I  have  only  met  with  one  earlier  reference 
to  anaesthesia  in  Persian  literature,  namely  the  well- 
known  passage  in  the  Shdh-ndma,  or  "  Book  of  Kings," 
of  Firdawsi^  (composed  early  in  the  eleventh  century 
of  our  era)  describing  the  Caesarean  section  practised 
on  Rudaba,  the  mother  of  Rustam,  at  the  time  of  his 
birth,  though  in  this  case  wine  was  the  agent  used  to 
produce  unconsciousness,  while  the  operator  was  a 
Mubadh  or  Zoroastrian  priest. 

Another  Persian  book,  entitled  Chahdr  Maqdla 
(the  "Four  Discourses"),  and  composed  about  a.d.  i  155 
by  a  court-poet  of  Samarqand  named  Nizami-i-'Ariidi, 
affords  more  copious  material  for  our  present  purpose 
than  either  of  the  books  mentioned  above.  The  author 
treats  of  four  classes  of  experts  whom  he  considers  in- 
dispensable at  a  properly  constituted  court,  to  wit 
Secretaries  of  State,  Poets,  Astrologers  and  Physicians; 
for,  as  he  observes  with  propriety,  the  business  of  kings 
cannot  be  conducted  without  competent  secretaries; 
their  triumphs  and  victories  will  not  be  immortalized 
without  eloquent  poets;  their  enterprises  will*  not  succeed 
^  Ed.  Turner  Macan,  vol.  i,  pp.  162-3. 


8o  Arabian  Medicine,    III 

unless  undertaken  at  seasons  adjudged  propitious  by- 
sagacious  astrologers;  while  health,  the  basis  of  all 
happiness  and  activity,  can  only  be  secured  by  the 
services  of  able  and  trustworthy  physicians.  Each  Dis- 
course, therefore,  deals  with  one  of  these  classes,  in  the 
order  given  above,  and,  after  some  preliminary  remarks 
on  the  qualifications  requisite  for  success  in  the  pro- 
fession in  question,  gives  a  number  of  anecdotes  (about 
ten  as  a  rule)  illustrating  the  author's  views.  These  are 
of  special  value  as  being  for  the  greater  part  derived 
from  his  own  recollections  and  experience.  Twenty 
years  ago  I  published  a  complete  translation  of  this 
work  in  the  Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society'^', 
ten  years  later  a  critical  text  with  Persian  notes  was 
prepared  by  a  learned  Persian  friend  of  mine,  Mi'rz^ 
Muhammad  Khdn  of  Qazwin,  and  published  in  the 
"  E.  J.  W.  Gibb  Memorial "  Series^ ;  and  I  am  now 
engaged  on  a  revised  and  annotated  translation  in 
which  special  attention  has  been  given  to  the  medical 
anecdotes.  The  fact  that  this  book  is  now  reasonably 
accessible  renders  it  unnecessary  for  me  to  speak  at 
greater  length  about  it,  and  I  shall  confine  myself  to  a 
few  remarks  on  the  Fourth  Discourse  dealing  with 
Physicians. 

'*  The  physician,"  says  our  author,  *'  should  be  of 
tender  disposition,  of  wise  and  gentle  nature,  and  more 
especially  an  acute  observer,  capable  of  benefiting 
everyone  by  accurate  diagnosis,  that  is  to  say,  by  rapid 
deduction  of  the  unknown  from  the  known.    And  no 

^  July  and  October,  1899.  The  separate  reprint,  now  exhausted, 
comprises,  with  the  Index,  139  pages. 

^  It  is  vol.  xi  of  this  series,  and  was  published  in  19 10.  The 
revised  and  annotated  translation,  now  in  the  Press,  will  constitute 
vol.  xi,  2,  of  the  same  series. 


Persian  Medical  Studies  in  a.b.  ii  ^6  8i 

physician  can  be  of  tender  disposition  if  he  fails  to 
recognize  the  nobility  of  man;  nor  of  philosophical 
nature  unless  he  be  acquainted  with  Logic;  nor  an  acute 
observer  unless  he  be  strengthened  by  God's  guidance; 
and  he  who  is  not  an  accurate  observer  will  not  arrive  at 
a  correct  understanding  of  the  cause  of  any  ailment." 

After  developing  this  thesis,  and  relating  the  case 
of  a  sick  man  healed  by  prayer,  the  author  gives  an  in- 
structive list  of  the  books  which  should  be  read  by  the 
aspirant  to  medical  science,  which  range  from  the 
Aphorisms  of  Hippocrates  and  the  Sixteen  Treatises 
of  Galen  to  the  great  ** Thesaurus"  of  Medicine  compiled 
in  Persian  fdr  the  Shdh  of  Khwarazm,  or  Khiva,  by 
Sayyid  Ismail  of  Jurjin  only  twenty  or  thirty  years 
earlier.  *'But,"  he  concludes,  '*if  the  student  desires  to 
be  independent  of  other  works,  he  may  rest  satisfied 
with  the  Qdw^n  of  Avicenna,"  whom  he  puts  second 
only  to  Aristotle,  and  praises  in  the  highest  terms  as 
the  only  thinker  during  fifteen  centuries  who  has  won 
to  the  inmost  essence  of  the  Aristotelian  philosophy 
and  travelled  the  road  of  his  great  predecessor's  pre- 
eminence. 

The  anecdotes  which  follow  are  of  a  somewhat 
different  type  from  those  we  have  hitherto  considered  ; 
we  find  none  of  those  grotesque  stories  of  abnormal 
parasitic  invasion,  or  of  the  therapeutic  virtues  of  vipers 
and  locusts.  On  the  other  hand  elementary  methods  of 
psychotherapeusis  form  the  subject-matter  of  no  less 
than  four  of  the  narratives,  and  several  of  these  have 
passed  into  general  Persian  literature,  even  poetry,  and 
have  thus  attained  considerable  notoriety.  We  may  take 
first  two  of  the  best  known,  wherein  the  emotions  of 
anger  and  shame  are  employed  respectively  in  the  treat- 
ment of  rheumatic  affections  of  the  joints. 


82  Arabian  Medicine.    Ill 

The  great  physician  Rhazes  was  summoned  to 
Transoxiana  to  attend  the  Amir  Mansur,  who  was 
suffering  from  a  rheumatic  affection  of  the  joints  which 
baffled  all  his  medical  attendants.  On  arriving  at  the 
Oxus,  Rhazes  was  so  much  alarmed  at  its  size  and  the 
small  and  fragile  appearance  of  the  boat  in  which  he 
was  invited  to  embark  that  he  declined  to  proceed 
further,  until  the  King's  messengers  bound  him  hand 
and  foot,  threw  him  into  the  boat,  and  carried  him  across 
by  force,  though  otherwise  they  treated  him  with  the 
utmost  respect  and  even  apologized  for  the  use  of 
violence,  begging  him  to  bear  them  no  grudge.  Rhazes 
assured  them  that  he  harboured  no  resentment  and  ex- 
plained the  motive  of  his  resistance.  *'  I  know,"  said  he, 
"that  every  year  many  thousand  persons  cross  the  Oxus 
safely,  but,  had  I  chanced  to  be  drowned,  people  would 
have  said,  'What  a  fool  Muhammad  ibn  Zakariyya  was 
to  expose  himself  to  this  risk  of  his  own  free  will.'  But, 
being  carried  across  by  force,  had  I  then  perished  people 
would  have  pitied,  not  blamed  me." 

On  reaching  Bukhdra  he  tried  various  methods  of 
treatment  on  the  Amir  without  success.  Finally  he  said 
to  him,  "  To-morrow  I  shall  try  a  new  treatment,  but  it 
will  cost  you  the  best  horse  and  best  mule  in  your  stables." 
The  Amir  agreed  and  placed  the  animals  at  his  disposal. 
Next  day  Rhazes  brought  the  Amir  to  a  hot  bath  out- 
side the  city,  tied  up  the  horse  and  the  mule,  saddled 
and  bridled,  outside,  and  entered  the  hot  room  of  the 
bath  alone  with  his  patient,  to  whom  he  administered 
douches  of  hot  water  and  a  draught  which  he  had  pre- 
pared *'tiU  such  time"  says  the  narrator,  '*as  the  humours 
in  his  joints  were  matured.  Then  he  went  out,  put  on 
his  clothes,  and,  taking  a  knife  in  his  hand,  came  in, 
and  stood  for  a  while  reviling  the  Amir,  saying,  'Thou 


Psychotherapeusis  [Rkazes)  83 

didst  order  me  to  be  bound  and  cast  into  the  boat,  and 
didst  conspire  against  my  life.  If  I  do  not  destroy  thee 
as  a  punishment  for  this,  my  name  is  not  Muhammad 
ibn  Zakariyya! '  The  Amir  was  furious,  and,  partly  from 
anger,  partly,  from  fear,  sprang  to  his  feet."  Rhazes  at 
once  fled  from  the  bath  to  where  his  servant  was  awaiting 
him  outside  with  the  horse  and  the  mule,  rode  off  at  full 
gallop,  and  did  not  pause  in  his  flight  until  he  had  crossed 
the  Oxus  and  reached  Merv,  whence  he  wrote  to  the 
Amir  as  follows^: 

''  May  the  life  of  the  King  be  prolonged  in  health 
and  authority!  Agreeably  to  my  undertaking  I  treated 
you  to  the  best  of  my  ability.  There  was,  however,  a 
deficiency  in  the  natural  caloric,  and  this  treatment  would 
have  been  unduly  protracted,  so  I  abandoned  it  in  favour 
of  psychotherapeusis  ['tldj-i-nafsdni),  and,  when  the 
peccant  humours  had  undergone  sufficient  coction  in  the 
bath,  I  deliberately  provoked  you  in  order  to  increase 
the  natural  caloric,  which  thus  gained  sufficient  strength 
to  dissolve  the  already  softened  humours.  But  hence- 
forth it  is  inexpedient  that  we  should  meet." 

The  Amir,  having  recovered  from  his  anger,  was 
delighted  to  find  himself  restored  to  health  and  freedom 
of  movement,  and  caused  search  to  be  made  everywhere 
for  the  physician,  but  in  vain,  until  on  the  seventh  day 
his  servant  returned  with  the  horse  and  mule  and  the 
letter  cited  above.  As  Rhazes  persisted  in  his  resolution 
not  to  return,  the  Amir  rewarded  him  with  a  robe  of 
honour,  a  cloak,  a  turban,  arms,  a  male  and  female  slave, 
and  a  horse  fully  caparisoned,  and  further  assigned  to 

^  I  have  slightly  abridged  and  otherwise  modified  the  letter,  of 
which  the  literal  translation  will  be  found  on  p.  1 1 7  of  the  separate 
reprint  of  my  translation  in  they".  R.  A.  S.  for  1899,  and  on  p.  84  of 
the  forthcoming  revised  translation. 


84  Arabian  Medicine,    III 

him  a  yearly  pension  of  2000  gold  dindrs  and  200  ass- 
loads  of  corn. 

This  anecdote  is  cited  in  a  well-known  Persian 
ethical  work,  the  Akhldq-i-Jaldli,  composed  three 
hundred  years  later  than  the  Chahdr  Maqdla,  In  the 
other  anecdote  which  I  place  in  the  same  category  the 
patient  is  a  woman  in  the  King's  household  who,  while 
bending  down  to  lay  the  table,  is  attacked  by  a  sudden 
''rheumatic  swelling  of  the  joints,"  and  is  unable  to  as- 
sume an  erect  posture.  The  Kings  physician  (not 
named),  being  commanded  to  cure  her,  and  having  no 
medicaments  at  hand,  has  recourse  to  "psychic  treat- 
ment" (tadbir~i-nafsdni)  and,  by  removing  first  her  veil 
and  then  her  skirt,  calls  to  his  aid  the  emotion  of  shame, 
whereby,  in  the  author's  words,  '*a  flush  of  heat  was 
produced  within  her  which  dissolved  the  rheumatic 
humour,"  so  that  she  stood  upright  completely  cured. 
This  story  is  retold  by  the  great  poet  Jdmi,  who 
flourished  about  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  in  his 
Silsilatu  dh-Dhahab  or  '*  Chain  of  Gold,"  but,  much 
more  important,  it  has  been  found  by  Mirzd  Muhammad 
Khan  in  a  manuscript  of  Avicennas  rare  and  un- 
published Kitdbu  l-Mabdd  wdl-Ma'dd  (the  ''  Book  of 
the  Origin  and  the  Return"),  whence  the  author  of  the 
Chahdr Maqdla  avowedly  took  it\  Avicenna,  therefore, 
evidently  believed  the  story,  though  he  too  omits  the 
name  of  the  physician,  only  stating  that  he  was  in  the 
service  of  one  of  the  Samdnid  rulers,  who  flourished  in 
Khurdsdn  and  Transoxiana  in  the  tenth  century. 

Of  both  the  two  next  anecdotes  Avicenna  is  again 
the  hero.  When  in  his  flight  from  Mahmiid  of  Ghazna 
he  came  incognito  to  Jurjdn  or  Gurgdn  (the  ancient 

^  See  p.  73  of  the  text  and  p.  242  of  the  notes  in  vol.  xi  of  the 
"E.  J.  W.  Gibb  Memorial"  Series* 


Avicenncis  Diagnosis  of  Love  85 

Hyrcania)  by  the  Caspian  Sea,  a  relative  of  the  ruler  of 
that  province  lay  sick  of  a  malady  which  baffled  all  the 
local  doctors.  Avicenna,  though  his  identity  was  then 
unknown,  was  invited  to  give  his  opinion,  and,  after 
examining  the  patient,  requested  the  collaboration  of 
someone  who  knew  all  the  districts  and  towns  of  the 
province,  and  who  repeated  their  names  while  Avicenna 
kept  his  finger  on  the  patient's  pulse.  At  the  mention 
of  a  certain  town  he  felt  a  flutter  in  the  pulse.  "  Now," 
said  he,  "I  need  someone  who  knows  all  the  houses, 
streets  and  quarters  of  this  town."  Again  when  a  cer- 
tain street  was  mentioned  the  same  phenomenon  was 
repeated,  and  once  again  when  the  names  of  the  inhabit- 
ants of  a  certain  household  were  enumerated.  Then 
Avicenna  said,  ''It  is  finished.  This  lad  is  in  love  with 
such-and-such  a  girl,  who  lives  in  such-and-such  a  house, 
in  such-and-such  a  street,  in  such-and-such  a  quarter  of 
such-and-such  a  town ;  and  the  girl's  face  is  the  patient's 
cure."  So  the  marriage  was  solemnized  at  a  fortunate 
hour  chosen  by  Avicenna,  and  thus  the  cure  was  com- 
pleted. 

For  this  story  again,  or  at  least  for  its  essential 
feature,  we  have  the  best  authority,  namely  Avicenna's 
own  statement  in  the  Qdmrn^  in  the  section  devoted  to 
Love,  which  is  classed  under  cerebral  or  mental  diseases, 
together  with  somnolence,  insomnia,  amnesia,  mania, 
hydrophobia,  melancholia,  and  the  like.  In  the  Latin 
translation^  this  section  is  hardly  recognizable  under 
the  title  De  Ilixi,  with  alhasch  as  a  marginal  variant, 
both  these  monstrosities  being  intended  to  represent 

^  See  p.  316  of  the  Arabic  text  printed  at  Rome  in  a.d.  1593.  Ibn 
Abi  Usaybi'a  (vol.  ii,  p.  128)  relates  very  similar  anecdotes  of  Galen 
and  of  Rashidu'd-Din  Abii  Haliqa. 

^  Venice,  1544,  f.  2oZb. 

BAM      7 


86  Arabian  Medicine.    Ill 

the  Arabic  al-  'Ishq,  *'  Love."  After  describing  the  symp- 
toms, and  especially  the  irregularities  of  the  pulse, 
Avicenna  says : 

"And  hereby  it  is  possible  to  arrive  at  the  identity 
of  the  beloved  person,  if  the  patient  will  not  reveal  it, 
such  knowledge  affording  one  means  of  treatment.  The 
device  whereby  this  may  be  effected  is  that  many  names 
should  be  mentioned  and  repeated  while  the  finger  is 
retained  on  the  pulse,  and  when  it  becomes  very  irregular 
and  almost  ceases,  one  should  then  repeat  the  process. 
I  have  tried  this  method  repeatedly,  and  have  discovered 
the  name  of  the  beloved.  Then,  in  like  manner,  men- 
tion the  streets,  dwellings,  arts,  crafts,  families  and 
countries,  joining  each  one  with  the  name  of  the  beloved, 
and  all  the  time  feeling  the  pulse,  so  that  when  it  alters 
on  the  mention  of  any  one  thing  several  times,  you 
will  infer  from  this  all  particulars  about  the  beloved  as 
regards  name,  appearance  and  occupation.  We  have 
ourselves  tried  this  plan,  and  have  thereby  arrived  at 
knowledge  which  was  valuable.  Then,  if  you  can  dis- 
cover no  cure  except  to  unite  the  two  in  such  wise  as 
is  sanctioned  by  religion  and  law,  you  will  do  this.  We 
have  seen  cases  where  health  and  strength  were  com- 
pletely restored  and  flesh  regained,  after  the  patient  had 
become  greatly  attenuated  and  suffered  from  severe 
chronic  diseases  and  protracted  accesses  of  fever  from 
lack  of  strength  resulting  from  excessive  love,  when  he 

was  accorded  union   with  his   beloved in  a  very 

short  time,  so  that  we  were  astonished  thereat  and 
realized  the  subordination  of  [human]  nature  to  mental 
imaginations." 

We  find  a  further  allusion  to  this  treatment  in  a  later 
medical  encyclopaedia  to  which  I  have  already  alluded, 
the    Dhakhira-i-Khwdrazmshdhi,    composed    between 


Loves  Malady  in  the  Mathnawi  %"] 

A.D.  1 1 1 1  and  1 1 36,  and  notable  as  the  first  great  system 
of  Medicine  written  in  the  Persian  instead  of  in  the 
Arabic  language.  Here  also  the  author,  Sayyid  Ismail 
of  Jurjan,  after  repeating  the  substance  of  Avicenna's 
directions,  adds :  "  Master  Abii  'Ali  (i.e.  Avicenna),  upon 
whom  be  God's  mercy,  says, '  I  have  tried  this  plan  and 
have  so  discovered  who  the  beloved  object  was,' "  and 
appends  a  fairly  close  translation  of  Avicenna's  con- 
cluding words  as  to  the  rapid  recovery  of  the  patient 
when  his  desire  is  fulfilled. 

Rather  more  than  a  hundred  years  later,  in  the 
middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  the  great  mystical  poet 
Jal^lu'd-Din  Rumi,  who  may  be  called  the  Dante  of 
Persia,  made  this  theme  the  subject  of  the  allegorical 
anecdote  which  comes  at  the  beginning  of  his  celebrated 
Mathnawi.  This  anecdote  describes  how  a  king  while 
hunting  saw  a  very  beautiful  girl,  fell  in  love  with  her, 
and  married  her.  To  his  great  distress  she  forthwith 
sickened,  nor  could  the  physicians  summoned  to  her 
bedside  alleviate  her  malady  or  assuage  her  suffering, 
because,  when  assuring  the  king  that  they  could  cure 
her,  they  omitted  the  saving  clause  {istithna)  *'  Please 
God."  Hence  all  their  drugs  produced  the  opposite 
effects  to  those  intended  and  desired  ;  oxymel  (sirkan- 
gahin)  only  increased  her  biliousness,  and  myrobolans 
{halila)  desiccated  instead  of  relaxing.  Finally,  in  answer 
to  the  king's  prayers,  a  ''  divine  physician "  (tabib-i- 
ildhi)  appears,  and,  after  a  careful  examination  of  the 
patient,  announces  that  the  treatment  hitherto  pursued 
has  been  wholly  mischievous  and  based  on  a  wrong 
diagnosis.  He  then  asks  to  be  left  alone  with  the  patient 
and  proceeds  to  question  her  about  the  towns  where 
she  has  previously  lived,  since,  he  explains,  treatment 
varies  according  to  place  of  origin  or  sojourn.     While 

7-2 


SS  Arabian  Medicine.    Ill 

talking  to  her  about  her  past  history  he  keeps  his  finger 
on  her  pulse,  but  observes  no  sign  of  emotion  until 
Samarqand  is  mentioned,  and  again  later  at  the  name 
of  the  Sar-i-pul  or  *'  Bridge-end"  quarter  and  the  street 
called  Ghatafar^  In  short  he  finally  discovers,  in  pre- 
cisely the  way  indicated  by  Avicenna,  that  she  is  in 
love  with  a  certain  goldsmith  living  in  that  quarter 
of  Samarqand.  Thereupon,  having  reassured  her  and 
promised  her  recovery,  he  instructs  the  king  to  send 
messengers  to  Samarqand  to  invite  the  goldsmith  to  his 
court  and  offer  him  handsome  remuneration.  The  un- 
suspecting goldsmith  comes  blithely,  flattered  by  the 
king's  gracious  words,  fine  gifts  and  fair  promises,  and 
on  his  arrival,  by  the  ''divine  physician's"  instructions, 
is  married  to  the  girl,  who  in  the  course  of  six  months  re- 
covers her  health  and  good  looks.  Then  the  physician 
begins  to  administer  to  the  goldsmith  a  slow  poison 
which  causes  him  to  become  "ugly,  displeasing  and 
sallow,"  so  that  the  girl  wearies  of  him  before  his  death, 
which  is  not  long  delayed,  places  her  once  more  at  the 
disposal  of  the  king,  whose  bride  she  now  becomes. 
Into  the  allegorical  meaning  of  this  outwardly  immoral 
story  I  have  not  time  to  enter  now,  but  this  purely 
literary  use  of  medical  material  indirectly  borrowed  from 
Avicenna  himself  appears  to  me  to  be  of  considerable 
interest. 

From  the  **  Four  Discourses  "  I  shall  only  cite  one 
more  anecdote,  of  which  again  Avicenna  is  the  hero. 
A  certain  prince  of  the  House  of  Buwayh  was  afflicted 
with  melancholia  and  suffered  from  the  delusion  that  he 
was  a  cow.  "  Every  day,"  says  the  author,  "  he  would 
low  like  a  cow,  causing  annoyance  to  everyone,  and 

^  This  actually  exists.    See  V.  Zhukovski's  Pasbajihhh  Ctapaio 
Mepba,  p.  171,  n.  I. 


Avicenna  cures  a  Melancholic  89 

crying,  'Kill  me,  so  that  a  good  stew  may  be  prepared 
from  my  flesh ' ;  until  matters  reached  such  a  pass  that 
he  would  eat  nothing,  while  the  physicians  were  unable 
to  do  him  any  good."  Finally  Avicenna,  who  was  at 
this  time  acting  as  prime  minister  to  'Ala  u'd-Dawla  ibn 
Kakuya,  was  persuaded  to  take  the  case  in  hand,  which 
in  spite  of  the  pressure  of  public  and  private  business, 
political,  scientific  and  literary,  with  which  he  was  over- 
whelmed, he  consented  to  do.  First  of  all  he  sent  a 
message  to  the  patient  bidding  him  be  of  good  cheer 
because  the  butcher  was  coming  to  slaughter  him, 
whereat,  we  are  told,  the  sick  man  rejoiced.  Some  time 
afterwards  Avicenna,  holding  a  knife  in  his  hand,  entered 
the  sick-room,  saying,  "Where  is  this  cow,  that  I  may 
kill  it?"  The  patient  lowed  like  a  cow  to  indicate  where 
he  was.  By  Avicenna's  orders  he  was  laid  on  the  ground 
bound  hand  and  foot.  Avicenna  then  felt  him  all  over 
and  said,  "He  is  too  lean,  and  not  ready  to  be  killed ; 
he  must  be  fattened."  Then  they  offered  him  suitable 
food,  of  which  he  now  partook  eagerly,  and  gradually 
he  gained  strength,  got  rid  of  his  delusion,  and  was 
completely  cured.  The  narrator  concludes,  "  All  wise 
men  will  perceive  that  one  cannot  heal  by  such  methods 
of  treatm.ent  save  by  virtue  of  pre-eminent  intelligence, 
perfect  science  and  unerring  acumen."  This  anecdote 
also  has  been  versified  by  Jami  in  his  "Chain  of  Gold" 
{Silsilatu  dh-Dhahab)  composed  in  a.d.  1485,  three 
hundred  and  thirty  years  after  the  "  Four  Discourses," 
but  I  can  find  no  allusion  to  any  such  method  of  treat- 
ment in  the  article  on  Melancholia  in  the  Qdnun  of 
Avicenna. 

Before  leaving  this  topic,  I  must  refer  to  an  anecdote 
given  by  the  poet  Nizdmi  in  his  "Treasury  of  Secrets" 
[Makhzanu  l-Asrdr),  where  suggestion  is  employed  not 


QO  Arabian  Medicine.   Ill 

to  heal  but  to  destroy.  This  story  relates  how  the  rivalry 
between  two  court  physicians  finally  reached  such  a 
point  that  they  challenged  one  another  to  a  duel  or  ordeal 
by  poison,  it  being  agreed  that  each  should  take  a  poison 
supplied  by  his  antagonist,  of  which  he  should  then  en- 
deavour to  counteract  the  effects  by  a  suitable  antidote. 
The  first  prepared  a  poisonous  draught  ''the  fierceness 
of  which  would  have  melted  black  stone";  his  rival 
drained  the  cup  and  at  once  took  an  antidote  which 
rendered  it  innocuous.  It  was  now  his  turn,  and  he  picked 
a  rose  from  the  garden,  breathed  an  incantation  over  it, 
and  bade  his  antagonist  smell  it,  whereupon  the  latter 
at  once  fell  down  dead.  That  his  death  was  due  simply 
to  fear  and  not  to  any  poisonous  or  magical  property  of 
the  rose  is  clearly  indicated  by  the  poet: 

'>w  0'>»-  Oy^  A^  J^  OU'  0^> 

»  •»  ^ 

'a>^  >*j  ^^  o-^  J'  ^y^  o' 

^''Through  this  rose  which  the  spell-breather  had  given  him 
Fear  overmastered  the  foe  and  he  gave  up  the  ghost. 
That  one  by  treatment  expelled  the  poison  froin  his  body. 
While  this  one  died  of  a  rose  from  fear.^^ 

I  have  little  doubt  that  suggestion  played  an  import- 
ant part  in  Arabian  Medicine,  and  that  wider  reading  in 
Arabic  and  Persian  books  (often  sadly  discursive  and  un- 
systematic, and,  of  course,  never  provided  with  indexes) 
would  yield  a  much  richer  harvest  in  this  field.  But  the 
people  of  the  East  have  much  of  the  child's  love  of  the 
marvellous ;  they  like  their  kings  to  be  immensely  great 
and  powerful,  their  queens  and  princesses  incomparably 


Miracles  expected  from  Medicine  91 

beautiful,  their  ministers  or  wazirs  abnormally  saga- 
cious, and  their  physicians  superhumanly  discerning  and 
resourceful.  This  unbounded  faith,  which  is  in  fact  most 
embarrassing  to  one  who  practises  medicine  in  the  East, 
is  sustained  and  extended  by  such  sensational  stories  as 
I  have  cited.  Rhazes  did  this,  they  will  tell  you,  and 
Avicenna  that,  and  are  not  you,  the  heir  of  all  the  ages, 
greater  than  these,  nay,  even  than  Hippocrates  and 
Galen  ?  Yet  the  genuine  case-book  of  Rhazes,  of  which, 
almost  alone  in  Arabic  literature,  a  fragment  has  happily 
been  preserved  to  us  in  a  Bodleian  ms/  mentioned  in  a 
former  lecture,  altogether  lacks  this  sensational  quality, 
and  it  is  to  the  credit  of  that  great  physician  that  he 
should  have  chosen  to  record  precisely  those  cases  which 
puzzled  him  at  first  or  baffled  him  altogether. 

In  the  opening  lecture  of  this  course  I  explained 
that,  while  the  Golden  Age  of  Islamic  or  Arabian 
literature  and  science  was  the  first  century  or  two  of 
the  *Abbdsid  Caliphate  of  Baghdad  (i.e.  from  a.d.  750 
onwards),  a  high  level  of  culture  continued  to  be  main- 
tained until  the  awful  catastrophe  of  the  Mongol  or 
Tartar  invasion  of  the  thirteenth  century  inflicted  on  it 
a  blow  from  which  it  has  never  recovered.  The  Caliphate 
was  overthrown  and  its  metropolis  sacked  and  laid  waste 
in  A.D.  1258,  and  though  the  surviving  scholars  of  the 
younger  generation  carried  on  the  sound  tradition  of 
scholarship  for  a  while  longer,  there  is,  broadly  speaking, 
a  difference  not  only  of  degree  but  of  kind  between 
the  literary  and  scientific  work  done  before  and  after 
the  thirteenth  century  throughout  the  lands  of  Islam. 
Medicine  and  history  owed  their  comparative  immunity 
to  the  desire  of  the  savage  conquerors  for  health  and 

^  Marsh  156,  ff.  239  (^-246^.    See  pp.  50-53  supra. 


92  Arabian  Medicine,   III 

fame,  and  in  the  next  lecture  I  shall  have  to  speak  of 
at  least  one  writer  who  flourished  even  as  late  as  the 
fourteenth  century.  Of  course  from  that  time  to  the 
present  day  there  has  been  no  lack  of  medical  literature 
of  a  sort:  some  idea  of  the  number  of  medical  works 
composed  in  Persian  alone  may  be  gathered  from  Adolf 
Fonahn's  Zur  Quellenkunde  der  Persischen  Medizin, 
published  at  Leipzig  in  1910.  The  author  of  this 
excellent  and  painstaking  book  enumerates  over  400 
Persian  works  (very  few  of  which  have  been  published) 
dealing  entirely  or  partly  with  medical  subjects,  and 
adds  a  very  useful  bibliography^  and  short  bio- 
graphical notices  of  25  of  the  most  notable  Persian 
physicians'  and  writers  on  Medicine  who  flourished 
from  the  end  of  the  tenth  to  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  excluding,  however,  such  men  as 
Rhazes,  **  Haly  Abbas "  and  Avicenna  who,  though 
Persian  by  race,  wrote  in  Arabic.  This  vernacular 
medical  literature  of  Persia  remains  almost  unexplored, 
nor  could  it,  as  a  rule,  be  explored  with  advantage  until 
a  much  more  thorough  examination  of  the  older  Arabic 
literature  has  been  effected.  A  thorough  knowledge  of 
the  contents  of  the  Hdwi  or  **Continens,"  xh^  Kitdbu  l- 
Maliki  or  ''Liber  Regius"  and  the  QdnUn  of  Avicenna 
would  be  necessary  in  order  to  decide  whether  any  sub- 
stantial addition  to,  or  modification  of,  these  classics 
was  effected  by  the  later  writers.  Of  one  great  Persian 
system  of  Medicine,  compiled  in  the  twelfth  century,  the 
Dhakhira-i-Khwdrazrnshdhi,  which  good  fortune  has 
rendered  accessible  to  me  in  several  manuscripts,  I  pro- 
pose to  speak  in  the  next  lecture.  Only  two  other 
Persian  medical  works  have  hitherto,  so  far  as  I  know, 
attracted  much  attention  in  Europe— Abii  Mansur 
^  PP-  135-140-  '  pp.  129-134. 


Introduction  of  Western  Medicine  to  the  East    93 

Muwafifaq  of  Herat's  Materia  Medica,  composed  about 
A.D.  950,  and  the  illustrated  Anatomy  of  Mansur  ibn 
Muhammad,  composed  in  a.d.  1396.  The  oldest  known 
Persian  manuscript  in  Europe,  copied  by  the  poet  Asadi 
in  A.D.  1055,  is  the  unique  original  of  the  former,  and 
was  produced  at  Vienna  by  Dr  F.  R.  Seligmann  in 
1859  in  a  most  beautiful  and  artistic  edition  on  which 
excellent  work  has  been  done  by  Abdul-Chalig  Achun- 
dow,  Dr  Paul  Horn  and  Professor  Jolly.  The  anatomical 
diagrams  contained  in  the  latter  have  especially  attracted 
the  attention  of  Dr  Karl  Sudhoff,  who  published  them 
from  the  India  Office  ms.  in  Studien  zur  Geschichte  der 
Medizin^y  and  who  has  suggested  that  they  represent 
an  ancient  tradition  going  back,  perhaps,  even  to  the 
Alexandrian  School.  Of  this  work  I  have  recently  ac- 
quired two  Mss.  in  which  some  of  the  illustrations  show 
variations  which  may  prove  of  interest. 

Before  concluding  this  lecture  I  may  add  a  few 
words  about  the  introduction  of  modern  European 
Medicine  into  the  Muslim  East,  where  the  old  system, 
which  we  call  Arabian  and  the  Muslims  Greek  {Tibb-i- 
Yilndni\  still  maintains  itself,  while  slowly  giving 
ground,  especially  in  Persia  and  India.  When  I  was  at 
Tihrdn  in  1887  Dr  Tholozon,  physician  to  His  late 
Majesty  Ndsiru'd-Din  Shdh,  kindly  enabled  me  to  at- 
tend the  meetings  of  the  Majlis-i-Sihhat,  or  Council  of 
Public  Health,  in  the  Persian  capital,  and  a  majority  of 
the  physicians  present  at  that  time  knew  no  medicine 
but  that  of  Avicenna.  Since  that  time  a  good  many 
young  Persians  (though  far  fewer  than  one  would  wish) 
have  come  to  Europe  to  study,  but  even  in  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century  much  was  being  done  by  such 
men  as  Dr  Polak.,  the  Austrian,  and  Dr  Schlimmer,  the 

^  Heft  4,  Leipzig,  1908. 


94  Arabian  Medicine.   Ill 

Dutchman,  who  went  out  to  Persia  to  organize  the  new 
Polytechnic  and  MiUtary  Colleges.  Dr  Schlimmer's 
Terminologie  Mddico-Pharmaceutique  et  Anthropolo- 
gique  Frangaise- Per  sane  ^  lithographed  at  Tihrdn  in 
1874,  is,  indeed,  invaluable  to  students  of  Oriental 
Medicine  by  reason  of  the  mass  of  information  it  con- 
tains and  the  careful  identifications  of  the  Persian  names 
of  plants,  drugs  and  diseases.  One  of  the  earliest  books 
printed  in  Persia  with  movable  types  was  a  treatise  on 
inoculation  for  small-pox  (which  I  have  not  seen)  pub- 
lished at  Tabriz  in  1825^  This  very  same  year  marks 
the  introduction  of  modern  medical  science  into  Egypt 
by  Clot  Bey  and  other  French  scientists  invited  thither 
by  the  Khedive  Muhammad  *Ali,  and  the  establishment 
of  the  hospital  at  Abu  Za'bal  near  Heliopolis,  which 
was  transferred  a  year  later  to  its  present  site  at 
Qasru'l-'Ayni.  Egyptian  students  had  been  sent  to 
Italy  in  18 13  and  18 16  and  to  England  in  18 18  to  study 
military  and  naval  science,  ship-building,  printing  and 
mechanics,  but  the  first  medical  students  seem  to  have 
been  sent  to  Paris,  no  doubt  at  the  instigation  of  Clot 
Bey,  in  1826.  An  excellent  account  of  this  latest  revival 
of  science  (an-Nahdatu  l-Akhira,  as  it  is  called  in  Arabic) 
is  given  by  that  indefatigable  writer  the  late  Jurji 
Zayddn,  a  Christian  Syrian  domiciled  in  Egypt,  in  his 
History  of  Arabic  Literature'^,  published  in  Cairo  in 
1911-14.  To  speak  of  it  in  detail  would  lead  me  too 
far  from  my  subject,  but  two  points  connected  with  its 
history  have  a  certain  bearing  on  the  revival  of  Greek 
learning  in  the  East  in  the  eighth  century,  which  I  dealt 
with  in  my  first  lecture  last  year.    I  spoke  there  of  the 

^  See  E.  G.  Browne's  Press  and  Poetry  of  Modern  Persia  (Cam- 
bridge, 1 9 14),  p.  7- 

2  TaWikhu  Addbi  H-Lughati  H-'Arabiyya,  vol.  iv,  pp.  24  ^Z  seqq. 


Modern  Egyptian  Translators  into  Arabic        95 

prejudice  against  dissection ;  and  it  is  interesting  to  note 
that  Clot  Bey  s  struggles  against  this  same  prejudice 
brought  him  within  measurable  distance  of  assassina- 
tion'. I  also  observed  that  while  some  Greek  books 
were  translated  directly  into  Arabic  for  the  Caliphs  of 
Baghdad,  in  many  cases  there  was  an  intermediate 
translation  into  Syriac.  So  in  the  ''latest  revival,"  which 
took  place  at  Cairo  a  thousand  years  later,  we  learn ^ 
that  one  of  the  most  skilful  translators,  Hunayn  or 
Yuhannd  'Anhuri  (whom  we  may  well  entitle  the  second 
yunayn  or  Johannitius),  "was  weak  in  French  but  well 
grounded  in  Italian,  from  which  he  used  to  translate 
into  Arabic.  So  when  the  book  was  written  in  French 
it  was  first  translated  for  him  into  Italian,  from  which 
he  translated  it  into  Arabic."  Whether  made  directly 
or  indirectly  from  the  original,  the  first  Arabic  transla- 
tion before  it  went  to  press  commonly  passed  through 
the  hands  of  an  editor  or  ''corrector"  (quite  distinct 
from  the  reader  of  the  press)  who  was  a  good  Arabic 
scholar,  knowing  something  of  the  science  in  question 
and  its  terminology,  but  ignorant  of  any  European 
language,  and  who  gave  the  book  a  proper  literary  form. 
A  similar  procedure,  according  to  Dr  Lucien  Leclerc, 
characterized  the  translation  of  Arabic  scientific  books 
into  Latin  in  the  Middle  Agesl 

How  aptly  does  Abu  1-'Ala  al-Ma'arri  liken  time  to 
a  long  poem,  in  which  the  rhyme,  metre  and  rhythm 
never  vary,  though  the  same  rhyming  word  is  never 
repeated. 

^  See  his  Apergu  general  sur  PEgypte,  vol.    \\,   p.   415   (Paris, 
1840). 

^  p.  190  of  Zaydan's  work  mentioned  in  the  last  note  but  one. 
^  Histoire  de  la  Medecine  Arabe^  vol.  ii,  pp.  344  and  345. 


96  Arabian  Medicine.   Ill 

"Z^/V  Z??V,  ^/<?  <?ze//^  ^<a!/^/«  rollt^  ist  wie  ein  Gedicht  : 

Dock  denselben  Reim  wiederholt        der  Dichter  nicht^." 

So  says  the  historian  Ibn  Khaldiin,  "The  Past  more 
closely  resembles  the  Future  than  water  resembles 
water." 

^  A.  von  Kremer's  Culturgeschichte  des  Orients y  vol.  ii,  p.  390,  and 
the  Z.  D.  M.  G.y  vol.  xxx,  p.  44.  Dr  R.  A.  Nicholson,  in  his  recently 
published  Studies  in  Islamic  Poetry  (Cambridge,  192 1,  p.  59),  trans- 
lates this  same  verse  thus : 

^^And  the  Maker  infinite^ 
Whose  poem  is  Time, 
He  need  not  weave  in  it 
A  forced  stale  rhyme.^^ 


LECTURE  IV 

1  HE  brief  survey  of  the  history  and  development  of 
Arabian  Medicine  which  I  have  attempted  in  the  last 
three  lectures,  and  which  I  must  conclude  to-day,  has 
necessarily  been  somewhat  severely  limited  by  con- 
siderations of  time ;  and  I  have  been  obliged  to  confine 
myself  for  the  most  part  to  the  period  and  realms  of  the 
*Abb^sid  Caliphs,  that  is  the  eighth  to  the  thirteenth 
centuries  of  our  era,  and  the  regions  of  Mesopotamia 
and  Persia.  I  regret  that  I  am  compelled  to  exclude 
from  this  survey  the  brilliant  civilization  developed  in 
Spain  and  the  West  under  Arab  dominion ;  but,  lest  you 
should  forget  it,  or  think  that  I  have  forgotten  it,  I 
must  at  least  mention  a  few  of  the  most  illustrious  names 
associated  with  Moorish  Medicine.  In  the  tenth  century 
Cordova  produced  the  greatest  surgeon  of  the  Arab  race, 
Abu'l-Qdsim  az-Zahrawi,  known  to  medieval  Europe 
as  Abulcasis  (or  even  Albucasis)  and  Alsaharavius,  with 
whom  was  contemporary  the  court-physician  Ibn  Juljul, 
whose  Lives  of  the  Physicians  and  Phiiosophers  is  un- 
happily lost.  "Aben  Guefit,"  properly  Ibnu'i-Wafid, 
of  Toledo,  and  Ibnu'l-Jazzir  of  Qayruwdn  in  Tunisia, 
who  sought  relaxation  from  his  professional  labours  in 
piracy  on  the  high  seas,  belong  to  a  slightly  later  genera- 
tion. The  twelfth  century  produced  the  famous  Averroes 
(Ibn  Rushd)  of  Cordova,  who  was,  however,  more 
notable  as  a  philosopher  than  as  a  physician ;  Avenzoar 
(Ibn  Zuhr)  of  Seville ;  and  the  famous  Jewish  scholar 
Maimonides  (Musi  ibn  Maymun),  also  of  Cordova,  who 
finally  became  court-physician  to  Saladdin  in  Egypt. 
One  other  name  of  the  thirteenth  century  which  must 
on  no  account  be  omitted  is  the  great  botanist  Ibnu'l- 


98  Arabian  Medicine,   IV 

Baytdr  of  Malaga,  a  worthy  successor  of  Dioscorides, 
who  travelled  widely  through  Greece,  Asia  Minor  and 
Egypt  in  search  of  medicinal  herbs,  and  whose  works 
on  Materia  Medica  have  been  made  known  in  Europe 
by  Sontheimer  and  Leclerc.  In  the  transmission  of  the 
Arabian  system  of  Medicine  to  Europe,  Spain  and 
N.W.  Africa,  as  you  are  well  aware,  played  the  chief 
part;  and  in  particular  Toledo,  where  men  like  Gerard 
of  Cremona  and  Michael  Scot^  sought  the  knowledge 
which  they  afterwards  conveyed  to  Christian  Europe. 

Turning  nowonce  more  to  Persia,  the  twelfth  century 
is  remarkable  for  the  development  of  a  vernacular 
medical  and  scientific  literature  of  which  only  scanty 
traces  are  found  in  earlier  times.  Arabic,  still  the  chief 
vehicle  of  theological  and  philosophical  thought  through- 
out the  lands  of  Isldm,  as  Latin  was  in  medieval 
Europe,  had  hitherto  been  used  almost  exclusively  even 
by  the  great  Persian  physicians  Rhazes,  Haly  Abbas 
and  Avicenna  of  whom  I  have  spoken.  But  in  the  early 
part  of  the  twelfth  century  there  came  to  the  court  of 
Khwdrazm  or  Khiva  a  physician  named  Zaynu'd-Din 
Isma'il  of  Jurjdn  (Hyrcania),  who  wrote  several  medical 
works,  of  which  the  most  important  and  by  far  the  largest 
is  entitled,  in  honour  of  the  ruler  to  whom  it  was  A^dX- 
cdX^dyDkakkira-i-Khwdrazmshdki,  or  the  ''Thesaurus" 
of  the  King  of  Khwdrazm.  This  work,  which  rivals  if  it 
does  not  exceed  in  scope  and  size  the  Qdnun  of  Avicenna, 
remains  unpublished,  though  I  believe  that  a  litho- 
graphed Urdu  translation  is  still  in  use  in  India.  I 
possess,  besides  several  isolated  volumes,  some  tran- 
scribed in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries,  one 

1  The  period  at  which  Gerard  of  Cremona  (b.  1 1 14,  d.  1 187)  visited 
Toledo  is  uncertain.    Michael  Scot  was  there  in  12 17. 


Persian  Medical  Literature  99 

complete  manuscript  of  this  encyclopaedic  work  com- 
prising 1403  pages  measuring  12x8  inches  and  each 
comprising  27  lines.  The  book  cannot  contain  much 
fewer  than  450,000  words;  and  as  the  writing  is  by  no 
means  clear,  the  text  far  from  correct,  and  there  are,  of 
course,  neither  head-lines  nor  indexes,  it  will  be  easily 
understood  that  the  perusal  of  it  is  somewhat  laborious. 
It  is,  however,  elaborately  divided  and  subdivided, 
primarily  into  nine  volumes,  with  a  tenth  supplementary 
volume  on  Materia  Medica,  and  secondarily  into  in- 
numerable Discourses  (Guftdr)^  Parts  {J^z)  and 
Chapters  [Bdb),  of  which,  with  the  help  of  another 
almost  complete  manuscript  belonging  to  the  Cam.bridge 
University  Library,  I  have  succeeded  in  making  an  ex- 
haustive table.  I  may  note  that  the  Library  of  this 
College  possesses  a  very  fine  old  twelfth  century  manu- 
script^ of  part  of  the  sixth  volume,  which  treats  of  local 
diseases  a  capite  ad  calcem,  including  all  six  chapters  of 
the  eighth  Discourse  on  diseases  of  the  heart,  and  part 
of  the  thirteenth  Discourse  dealing  with  dropsy. 

The  same  author  composed  several  smaller  medical 
works,  all  in  Persian,  namely  the  "Aims  of  Medicine" 
{Agkrdd-i-Tibb),  the  "Remembrancer"  (Yddgdr)  on 
Materia  Medica  and  Pharmacy,  and  the  Khuffi-i-Ald'i 
written  in  two  elongated  volumes  to  be  carried  by  the 
traveller  one  in  each  of  his  riding-boots  {khuff),  whence 
its  name.  All  these  are  described  by  Fonahn  in  his  use- 
ful work  Zur  Quellenkunde  der  Persischen  Medizin,  and 
all  are  recommended  by  the  author  of  the  '*  Four  Dis- 
courses" {Chahdr  Maqdla),  written  only  twenty  years 
after  the  death  of  Zaynu  d-Din  Isma'il.  Of  the  ''The- 
saurus,"  by  which  term  I  shall  henceforth  denote  the 
Dhakhira-i'Khwdrazmshdhi,  I  shall  have  a  good  deal 

^  Marked  A.  27. 


loo  Arabian  Medicine.   IV 

more  to  say,  but  first  I  will  complete  my  literary  survey 
down  to  the  Mongol  period,  beyond  which  I  do  not 
propose  to  go. 

The  thirteenth  century  is  remarkable  for  the  number 
of  excellent  biographical  works  in  Arabic  which  it  pro- 
duced.*  First,  as  containing  only  medical  biographies, 
I  will  mention  the  'Uyiinu  l-Anbd  fi  Tabaqdti l-Atibbd 
("Sources  of  Information  on  the  Classes  of  Physicians"), 
compiled  by  Ibn  Abi  Usaybi'a  at  Damascus  in  a.d.  i  245, 
and  printed  at  Cairo  in  two  volumes  in  1882.    Then 
there  is  the   Ta  rikku^ l-Hukamd,  a  biographical  dic- 
tionary of  philosophers  and  physicians  composed  by 
al-Qifti,  a  native  of  Upper  Egypt,  a  great  lover  and 
collector  of  books,  who  combined  piety  with  tolerance 
and  was  generous  in  his  help  to  other  scholars,  and  who 
died  at  the  age  of  76  in  a.d.  1248.    The  text  of  this 
valuable  work,  edited  by  Dr  Julius  Lippert,  was  pub- 
lished at  Leipzig  in  1903.    Another  similar  but  rather 
earlier  work  by  Shahraziiri  exists  in  two  recensions,  one 
Arabic  and  one  Persian,  but  is  rare  and  remains  un- 
published.   The  great  biographical  dictionary  of  Ibn 
Khallikan,  begun  in  Cairo  in  a.d.  1256  and  finished  in 
the  same  city  in  a.d.  1274,  is  accessible  to  the  English 
reader  in  the  translation  of  the  Baron  McGuckin  de 
Slane,  and,  though  more  general  in  its  scope,  contains 
the  lives  of  several  physicians  of  note.    The  geographer 
Ydqiit,  who  flourished  about  the  same  time,  also  wrote  a 
biographical  dictionary,  of  which  five  volumes  have  been 
edited  by  Professor  Margoliouth,  but  this  deals  chiefly 
with  men  of  letters.     Lastly,  mention  must  be  made  of 
the  Christian  physician,  philosopher,  theologian  and 
historian,  Abu'l-Faraj  Gregorius,  better  known  as  Bar 
Hebraeus,  who  died  at  the  age  of  60  in  a.d.  1286,  and 


Medieval  Muslim  Hospitals  loi 

whom  the  late  Dr  Wright^  has  described  as  ''one  of  the 
most  learned  and  versatile  men  that  Syria  ever  pro- 
duced." He  wrote  chiefly  in  Syriac,  but  at  the  end  of 
his  life,  at  the  request  of  some  Muslim  friends  at 
Maragha  in  N.W.  Persia,  he  produced  an  Arabic  re- 
cension of  the  first  or  political  portion  of  his  great 
Universal  History  ''enriched  with  many  references  to 
Muhammadan  writers  and  literature  which  are  wanting 
in  the  Syriac  "  original.  Being  himself  a  physician  of 
note,  enjoying  in  a  high  degree  the  favour  and  confi- 
dence of  the  Mongol  rulers  of  Persia,  he  naturally 
devotes  a  good  deal  of  attention  in  his  history  to  medical 
matters.  This  book  was  edited  with  a  Latin  translation 
by  Pocock  in  a.d.  1663,  ^^^  another  excellent  edition 
with  full  indexes  was  published  by  the  Catholic  Press 
at  Beyrout  in  a.d.  1890. 

What  we  chiefly  lack  in  order  to  form  a  picture  of 
the  practice  of  Medicine  in  the  lands  of  Isldm  during 
the  Middle  Ages  is  some  account  of  the  actual  ad- 
ministration of  the  hospitals  founded  in  considerable 
numbers  in  the  more  important  towns  by  pious  bene- 
factors. About  the  actual  buildings,  indeed,  we  find 
information  in  the  narratives  of  travellers  like  Ibn 
Batuta  (fourteenth  century)  and  the  descriptions  of 
topographers  like  al-Maqrizi  (fifteenth  century),  who 
gives  particulars  as  to  the  history,  situation  and  structure 
of  five  hospitals  in  Cairol  The  oldest  of  these  was  that 
founded  by  Ahmad  ibn  Tulun  about  a.d.  873;  the  most 
important  that  founded  by  Qalaun  about  a.d.  1284  and 
called  "-  the  great  hospital  of  al-Mansiir  "  [al-Mdristdn 
al-Kabir  al-Mansuri),     It  was   founded  by  Qala'un 

^  Syriac  Literature  (London,  1894),  p.  265.  For  a  list  of  his 
medical  works,  see  p.  252  of  the  same. 

^  Khitat  (Bulaq,  1853),  vol.  ii,  pp.  405-8.  See  also  E.  W.  Lane's 
Cairo  Fifty  Years  Ago  (London,  1896),  pp.  92-4. 

BAM      8 


I02  Arabian  Medicine.    IV 

al-Malik  al-Mansur  in  fulfilment  of  a  vow  which  he 
made  some  years  earlier  when  he  was  cured  of  a  severe 
attack  of  colic  at  Damascus  by  physicians  attached  to 
the  hospital  founded  in  that  city  by  Nuru'd-Din,  under 
whom  the  great  Saladdin  first  served.  The  endow- 
ments amounted  to  a  million  dirhams  annually ;  it  was 
open  to  all  sick  persons,  rich  or  poor,  male  or  female, 
and  contained  wards  for  women  as  well  as  men,  and 
female  as  well  as  male  attendants  were  appointed  for 
the  care  of  the  patients.  One  large  ward  was  set  apart 
for  fevers,  one  for  ophthalmic  cases,  one  for  surgical 
cases  and  one  for  dysentery  and  kindred  ailments.  There 
were  also  kitchens,  lecture-rooms,  store-rooms  for  drugs 
and  apparatus,  a  dispensary,  and  rooms  for  the  medical 
officers.  It  is  worth  noting  that  the  word  Mdristdn, 
used  throughout  these  books  for  a  hospital,  is  a 
corruption  of  the  Persian  word  Bimdristdny  which 
signifies  in  that  language  ''a  place  for  the  sick."  It  has 
now  been  replaced  in  Egypt  by  the  purely  Arabic  word 
Mustashfd,  meaning  "a  place  where  health  is  sought," 
while  Mdristdn  has  come  to  be  used  in  the  sense  of  a 
mad-house.  From  the  first  certain  chambers  or  cells 
were  set  apart  in  these  hospitals  for  lunatics,  and 
Maqrizi  tells  us  how  Ahmad  ibn  Tuliin,  the  founder  of 
the  oldest  hospital  in  Cairo,  used  to  visit  it  daily  until 
a  lunatic  begged  a  pomegranate  of  him,  and  then,  in- 
stead of  eating  it,  threw  it  at  him  with  such  violence 
that  it  burst  and  spoiled  his  clothes,  after  which  he 
would  never  again  visit  the  hospital.  Lane,  in  his  Cairo 
Fifty  Years  Ago  (pp.  92-4),  gives  a  pitiful  account  of 
the  lunatics  he  saw  in  the  Bimiristan  of  Qala  un  when 
he  visited  it ;  while  Clot  Bey,  in  his  Apergu  gdndral 
sur  r£gypte^j  draws  a  deplorable  picture  of  the  state  of 

^  Paris,  1840,  vol.  ii,  pp.  382  et  seqq. 


Rashidud-Din,  Physician  and  Statesman      T03 

Medicine  in  that  country  at  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century. 

A  very  valuable,  I  believe  unique,  Persian  manu- 
script which  I  recently  acquired  from  the  library  of  the 
late  Sir  Albert  Houtum-Schindler,  who  during  his  long 
residence  in  Persia  had  gained  more  knowledge  of  that 
country  in  all  its  aspects  than  anyone  now  living 
possesses,  throws  some  light  incidentally  on  the  state  of 
Medicine  there  in  the  early  fourteenth  century.  One  of 
the  most  learned  men  and  scholarly  writers  of  that  period 
was  the  physician  Rashidu'd-Din  Fadlu'lldh,  born  in  a.d. 
1247  at  Hamadan,  where  Avicenna  is  buried.  He  be- 
came court-physician  to  the  Mongol  ruler  Abaqa,  whose 
successor  Ghdzdn,  a  convert  to  Isldm,  formed  so  high 
an  opinion  of  him  that  he  appointed  him  Prime  Minister 
in  A.D.  1295.  During  the  twenty-two  years  for  which 
he  held  this  high  and  perilous  post  (for  it  was  quite 
exceptional  for  the  Minister  of  a  Mongol  sovereign  to 
die  a  natural  death)  he  enjoyed  enormous  wealth  and 
power,  which  he  used  in  the  most  beneficent  manner  for 
the  foundation  of  colleges,  hospitals  and  libraries,  the 
endowment  of  learning,  and  the  encouragement  of 
scholars.  On  the  beautiful  quarter  which  he  founded 
at  Tabriz  and  named  after  himself  Rab'-i-Rashidi  he 
lavished  endless  care,  not  only  adorning  it  with  noble 
'buildings  consecrated  to  pious  and  learned  uses,  but 
drawing  thither  by  his  bounty  the  greatest  scholars,  the 
most  eminent  professional  men,  and  the  most  skilful 
artisans  of  the  time  from  all  parts  of  the  world.  The 
extraordinary  and  minute  precautions  which  he  took  to 
perpetuate  and  diffuse  the  learning  stored  in  the  in- 
comparable libraries  of  the  Rab'-i-Rashidi  are  fully 
detailed  by  Quatremere  in  the  Introduction  to  his 
Histoire  des  Mongols.  Alas,  that  these  precautions  in 
8-2 


I04  Arabian  Medicine.    IV 

the  event  proved  vain,  for  when,  in  July  1318,  he  finally- 
fell  a  victim  to  the  intrigues  of  envious  rivals  and  was 
put  to  death,  the  beautiful  suburb  on  which  he  had 
lavished  so  much  thought,  care  and  wealth  was  utterly- 
wrecked  and  plundered ! 

Such  in  brief  was  the  man  who  at  the  height  of  his 
power  preferred  to  call  himself  "Rashid  the  physician" 
rather  than  indulge  in  the  high-sounding  titles  of  a  grandi- 
loquent age ;  and  the  manuscript  of  which  I  have  spoken 
contains  a  collection  of  some  fifty  of  his  letters,  addressed 
to  many  different  people  on  many  different  subjects, 
collected  and  arranged  by  his  secretary  Muhammad  of 
Abarquh.  My  friend  Muhammad  Shafi*,  now  Professor  of 
Arabic  at  the  Oriental  College,  Lahore,  was  good  enough 
to  make  an  abstract  of  this  precious  volume,  condensing 
or  omitting  the  precepts  and  platitudes  with  which  many 
of  the  letters  are  filled,  but  devoting  particular  attention 
to  those  which  contain  matters  of  interest,  and  especially 
of  medical  or  pharmaceutical  interest.  These,  ten  in 
number,  I  propose  briefly  to  discuss,  taking  them  in  the 
order  in  which  they  occur  in  the  manuscript. 

No.  18  (ff.  34^-36<5),  addressed  to  Khwaja  'Ald'u  d- 
Din  Hindu,  demanding  various  oils  for  the  hospital  in 
the  Rab'-i-Rashidi  at  Tabriz,  where,  according  to  the 
report  of  the  physician  in  charge,  Muhammad  ibnu'n- 
Nili,  who  is  described  as  the  ''Galen  of  our  times,"  they 
were  urgently  needed.  The  quantity  of  each  oil  required 
(varying  from  i  to  300  maunds)  and  the  place  from 
which  it  is  to  be  obtained  are  carefully  specified.  Shirdz 
is  to  supply  six  different  kinds  ;  Basra,  seven ;  Asia 
Minor,  six ;  Baghddd,  nine  ;  Syria,  three ;  and  Hilla, 
three.  Most  of  them  are  aromatic  oils  prepared  from 
various  fragrant  flowers,  violets,  jessamine,  narcissus, 
roses  of  different  sorts,  myrtle,  orange-blossoms  and 


Letters  of  Rashid  the  Physician  105 

the  like,  but  we  find  also  absinth,  mastic,  camomile, 
castor  oil,  and  even  oil  of  scorpions.  In  a  post-script 
the  writer  urges  speed  in  the  fulfilment  of  these  com- 
missions, and  orders  that,  to  save  delay,  a  separate 
messenger  is  to  be  sent  to  each  of  the  six  localities 
indicated. 

No.  19  (ff.  36  b-\o  a),  addressed  by  Rashid  to  his 
son  Amir  *Ali,  governor  of  Baghdad,  instructing  him 
as  to  pensions  and  presents  to  be  given  to  learned 
men  throughout  the  Persian  Empire  from  the  Oxus  to 
the  Jamna  and  as  far  west  as  Asia  Minor  and  the 
Egyptian  frontiers.  The  presents  in  each  case  consist 
of  a  sum  of  money,  a  fur  cloak  or  pelisse,  and  a  beast 
for  riding.  Only  one  of  the  49  persons  named  is 
specifically  described  as  a  physician,  namely  one  Mahmud 
ibn  1 1yds \  who  is  to  receive  1000  dindrs  in  cash,  a  cloak 
of  grey  squirrel,  and  a  horse  or  mule  with  saddle. 

No.  21  (ff.  45^-53<^),  addressed  by  Rashid  to  his 
son  Jaldlu'd-Din,  governor  of  Asia  Minor,  requesting 
him  to  send  every  year  to  Tabriz  for  use  in  the 
hospital  quantities  varying  from  50  to  100  maunds  of 
six  drugs,  namely,  anise-seed,  agaric,  mastic,  lavender, 
dodder  and  wormwood. 

No.  29  (ff.  87  ^-92  a).  This  letter  was  written  from 
Multan  in  Sind  to  Mawlana  Qutbu'd-Din  of  Shiraz. 
The  writer  complains  that  he  had  been  compelled  to 
abandon  his  pleasant  life  in  Persia  and  undertake  a 
troublesome  journey  to  India  at  the  whim  of  Arghiin 
the  Mongol,  who  wished  him  to  impress  on  the  Indian 
kings  and  princes  the  power  and  greatness  of  his  master, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  collect  certain  useful  drugs  not 
to  be  found  in  Persia.  He  expresses  satisfaction  at  the 
success  of  his  mission  and  his  approaching  return  home 

^  See  No.  ^\  infra. 


io6  Arabian  Medicine.    IV 

and  incidentally  describes  how  he  succeeded  without 
offending  Sultdn  'Ala  u'd-Din,  to  whom  he  was  accredited, 
in  remonstrating  with  him  on  his  excessive  indulgence 
in  wine,  the  remonstrance  being  rendered  so  palatable 
by  an  entertaining  anecdote  and  some  appropriate 
verses  that  his  royal  host,  instead  of  being  annoyed, 
assigned  to  him  and  his  sOn  after  him  a  handsome 
pension. 

No.  36  (ff.  1 20  <5~i  3 1  b)  is  a  very  long  letter,  written 
when  Rashid  was  suffering  from  what  he  believed  to  be 
a  mortal  illness,  containing  elaborate  instructions  about 
the  disposal  of  his  property  and  the  maintenance  of  his 
foundations.  He  gives  some  particulars  of  the  library 
which  he  had  bequeathed  to  the  Rab'-i-Rashidi,  com- 
prising 1000  Qurdns,  many  of  them  written  by  the  most 
famous  calligraphists,  and  60,000  other  manuscripts, 
scientific  and  literary,  including  books  brought  from 
India  and  China.  He  also  makes  special  mention  of 
1000  Chinese  syrup-jars,  very  artistically  made,  each 
bearing  the  name  of  the  syrup  for  which  it  was  intended, 
and  Chinese  boxes  for  electuaries. 

No.  40  (ff.  136^-138^),  though  not  concerned 
with  medicine,  is  interesting  as  showing  the  solidarity 
of  the  Muslim  world,  the  rapidity  with  which  ideas 
permeated  it,  even  to  the  remotest  parts,  and  the 
immense  stimulus  to  learning  which  one  generous 
patron  could  give,  even  in  lands  not  politically  connected 
with  his  own.  It  contains  Rashid's  instructions  to  one 
of  his  agents  in  Asia  Minor  as  to  the  adequate  re- 
muneration in  money  and  presents  of  the  learned  men 
in  the  Maghrib,  or  western  lands  of  Islam,  who  had 
written  books  in  his  honour.  Of  these  ten,  six  were 
resident  in  Cordova,  Seville  and  other  parts  of  An- 
dalusia, and  four  in  Tunis,  Tripoli  and  Qayruwan.    We 


Letters  of  Rashid  the  Physician  107 

flatter  ourselves  on  the  facilities  of  communication 
existing  in  these  our  days,  but  it  is  questionable  whether 
an  idea,  a  book,  or  a  philosophical  doctrine  would  travel 
so  quickly  now  from  Tunis  to  Tabriz  or  from  Seville 
to  Samarqand  as  it  did  in  the  fourteenth  century.  So 
potent  was  the  unifying  effect  of  Islam  and  its  universal 
medium  the  Arabic  language  ! 

No.  41  (ff.  \i%b-i^ob)  concerns  the  reconstruction 
and  re-endowment  of  a  hospital  at  Shiraz,  which, 
originally  founded  by  the  Atibeks  of  Fars  a  century 
earlier,  had  for  some  time  fallen  into  decay.  Rashid  now 
appoints  a  new  physician,  Mahmiid  ibn  Ilyas\  who  had 
attracted  his  favourable  notice  by  a  medical  work  en- 
titled Laid' if-i-Rashidiyya  composed  in  his  honour. 
I  do  not  know  whether  this  book  is  still  extant,  but 
Fonahn^  mentions  another,  entitled  Tuhfatu  l-Hukamd 
(the  ''Physicians'  Gift"),  by  the  same  author,  of  which 
there  is  a  manuscript  in  the  Niir-i-'Uthmdniyya  Library 
at  Constantinople.  To  this  physician  are  hereby  assigned 
a  yearly  salary  and  handsome  gifts  payable  from  the 
local  revenues,  and  he  is  placed  in  control  of  the  hospital 
and  all  its  endowments. 

No.  42  (ff.  141  ^-142  ^)  is  entirely  concerned  with 
the  hospital  at  Hamaddn  (Rashid  s  native  city),  which 
had  also  fallen  into  an  unsatisfactory  state  through  mis- 
appropriation of  its  revenues.  A  new  physician,  Ibn 
Mahdi,  is  appointed  to  take  charge  of  the  hospital  and 
reorganize  it  with  more  regard  to  the  welfare  of  the 
patients  and  the  supply  of  the  necessary  drugs  and 
medicaments,  amongst  which  special  mention  is  made 
of  several  not  easily  procured,  such  as  Terra  sigillata 
(tin-i-makhtum),    Oil    of    balsam    (rawghan-i-balsdn), 

^  See  No.  19  supra. 

^  Zur  Quellenkunde  d.  Per 5.  Medizin^  p.  124. 


io8  Arabian  Medicine.    IV 

Folia  Indica  or  Malabathrum  {sddhaj-i-hindi),  and 
Theban  electuary  (tirydq-i-fdrilq).  Arrangements  are 
also  proposed  for  the  proper  ordering  of  the  accounts, 
and  the  physician,  after  attending  to  all  these  matters, 
and  appointing  a  dispenser,  a  dresser,  a  cook  and  other 
officers,  is  instructed  to  return  to  Tabriz,  where  further 
favours  await  him.  This  letter  is  one  of  the  few  which 
is  dated:  it  w^s  written  from  Caesarea  {Qo^ysciriyya)  in 
A.H.  690  (a.d.  1 291). 

No.  47  (ff.  151^-1563)  is  a  letter  written  from 
India  by  Malik  *Ald'u'd-Din  to  Rashid,  complimenting 
him  on  his  public  spirit  and  services  to  humanity,  and 
containing  a  long  list  of  presents  forwarded  to  him  by  the 
port  of  Basra.  These  presents  are  arranged  in  twelve 
categories,  viz.  (i)  wearing  apparel,  (2)  precious  stones, 
(3)  perfumes,  (4)  rare  animals,  (5)  conserves,  (6)  drugs 
and  simples,  (7)  a  lotion  for  removing  freckles,  placed 
in  a  class  by  itself,  (8)  upholstery,  (9)  aromatic  oils, 
(10)  plate  and  china,  (11)  spices  and  dried  fruits,  and 
(12)  rare  woods  and  ivory.  The  list  of  drugs  is  the 
longest  and  contains  22  items,  including  cinnamon, 
nutmeg,  cloves,  cardamoms,  cubebs,  cassia,  fumitory 
and  betel-nuts. 

No.  51  (ff.  171  b-\']^b).  From  Rashid  to  his  son 
Sa'du'd-Din,  governor  of  Qinnasrin  and  the  'Awdsim 
in  Asia  Minor,  describing  the  concourse  of  scholars 
attracted  to  Tabriz  by  his  bounty  and  the  splendours  of 
the  suburb  of  Rab'-i-Rashidi,  on  which  he  has  lavished 
so  much  care  and  money.  It  contained  24  caravanse- 
rais, 1500  workshops,  and  30,000  beautiful  houses, 
besides  gardens,  baths,  shops,  mills,  weaving  and  dyeing 
establishments,  paper  factories,  and  a  mint.  The  in- 
habitants had  been  carefully  chosen  from  various  cities 
and  countries.    There  were  200  professional  Qurdn- 


The  Rab*-i-Rashidi  109 

readers  with  fixed  salaries  to  read  the  scripture  daily  in 
the  chapel  appointed  for  that  purpose  and  to  train  forty 
selected  acolytes.  There  was  a  Scholars'  Street  {Kiccha- 
i-'ulamd)y  where  dwelt  400  divines,  jurisconsults  and 
traditionists,  with  suitable  salaries  and  allowances,  and 
in  the  neighbouring  students'  quarters  lived  1000  eager 
students  from  various  Muslim  countries  whose  studies 
were  subsidized  and  directed  according  to  their  aptitudes. 
Fifty  skilful  physicians  had  been  attracted  thither  from 
India,  China,  Egypt,  Syria  and  other  countries,  to  each 
of  whom  were  assigned  ten  enthusiastic  students  with 
definite  duties  in  the  hospital,  to  which  were  also 
attached  surgeons,  oculists  and  bone-setters,  each  of 
whom,  had  the  charge  of  five  students.  All  these  dwelt 
in  the  Street  of  the  Healers  {Kilcha-i-mu'dlijdn)  at  the 
back  of  the  hospital,  near  the  gardens  and  orchards  of 
Rashiddbdd. 

I  have  now  completed  what  I  have  to  say  about  the 
history  and  literature  of  the  so-called  Arabian  Medicine 
within  the  restricted  limits  imposed  on  me  by  con- 
siderations of  space  and  time,  and  I  propose  now  to 
say  a  few  words  about  the  system  itself,  with  special 
reference  to  the  Kdmilu s-Sind'at,  or  "  Liber  Regius," 
of  al-Majusi,  the  Qdnlin  of  Avicenna,  and  especially 
the  Persian  ''Thesaurus"  of  Khwarazmshah,  which  is 
accessible  only  in  manuscript.  All  these  three  are 
systematic  treatises  dealing  with  the  whole  science  and 
art  of  Medicine  as  understood  by  the  medieval  Muslim 
world.  The  *'  Liber  Regius "  is  the  simplest  in  its 
arrangement,  consisting  of  two  volumes  each  containing 
ten  Discourses  {Maqdla),  the  first  ten  dealing  with  the 
theory  and  the  second  ten  with  the  practice  of  Medicine  ; 
and  its  Latin  translation,  printed  at  Lyons  in  1523,  is 
the  best  and  most  adequate  of  these  translations  which 


no  Arabian  Medicine.    IV 

I  have  met  with.  The  other  two  books  suffer  from  the 
common  Oriental  fault  of  exaggerated  and  over-elaborate 
subdivision.  Ignoring  these,  the  contents  of  the  ten 
books  (i.e.  nine  books  and  a  supplement)  which  consti- 
tute the  ''Thesaurus"  are  briefly  as  follows: 

Book  I,  comprising  6  Discourses  and  "j"]  chapters, 
treats, of  the  definition,  scope  and  utility  of  Medicine; 
of  the  Natures,  Elements,  Complexions  or  Tempera- 
ments and  Humours;  of  Anatomy,  general  and  special; 
and  of  the  three-fold  Functions  or  Powers  of  the  body, 
natural,  animal  and  psychical. 

Book  II,  comprising  9  Discourses  and  1 5 1  chapters, 
treats  of  health  and  disease  (including  General  Patho- 
logy, classification  and  nomenclature);  signs  and  symp- 
toms, especially  the  pulse  and  the  excretions ;  aetiology ; 
Embryology  and  Obstetric  Medicine  and  the  growth 
and  care  of  the  child ;  the  emotions ;  and  Life  and  Death. 

Book  III,  comprising  14  Discourses  and  204 
chapters,  treats  of  Hygiene,  including  the  effects  of 
climate,  season,  air,  water,  food  and  drink  of  all  kinds, 
especially  wine ;  sleeping,  waking,  movement  and  rest ; 
clothing  and  perfumes;  bleeding,  purging  and  emetics; 
dyscrasia;  mental  states  and  their  effects  on  the  body; 
the  prodromata  of  disease;  and  the  care  of  children,  the 
aged  and  travellers. 

Book  IV,  comprising  4  Discourses  and  25  chapters, 
treats  of  the  importance  and  principles  of  diagnosis, 
and  of  coction,  crisis  and  prognosis. 

Book  V,  comprising  6  Discourses  and  80  chapters, 
treats  of  the  varieties,  aetiology,  symptoms  and  treat- 
ment of  Fever,  the  first  four  Discourses  being  chiefly 
devoted  to  malarial  fevers,  the  fifth  to  small-pox  and 
measles,  and  the  sixth  to  recurrence,  prophylaxis,  diet, 
and  the  treatment  of  convalescents. 


The  Thesaurus  of  Khwdrazmshah  iii 

Book  VI,  comprising  21  Discourses  and  434 
chapters,  treats  of  local  diseases  a  capite  ad  calceniy 
including  mental  affections,  epilepsy,  apoplexy,  paralysis, 
tetanus,  dropsy,  gynaecology,  obstetrics,  gout,  rheuma- 
tism, sciatica  and  elephantiasis. 

Book  VII,  comprising  7  Discourses  and  55 
chapters,  treats  of  general  pathological  conditions  which 
may  affect  any  organ,  including  tumours,  abscesses, 
cancer,  wounds,  fractures  and  dislocations,  and  contains 
a  Discourse  of  12  chapters  on  the  use  of  the  actual 
cautery. 

Book  VIII,  comprising  3  Discourses  and  2)1 
chapters,  treats  of  personal  cleanliness  and  the  care  of 
the  hair,  nails  and  complexion. 

Book  IX,  comprising  5  Discourses  and  44  chapters, 
treats  of  poisons,  animal,  vegetable,  and  mineral;  and 
of  the  bites  and  stings  of  beasts,  snakes  and  venomous 
reptiles  and  insects. 

Here  this  immense  work,  comprising  9  Books,  75 
Discourses,  and  1107  chapters,  originally  ended  with 
the  colophon  :  "  Here  endeth  the  Book  of  Poisons, 
with  the  conclusion  of  which  endeth  the  Work  entitled 
the  Thesaurus  of  Khwdrazmshdh,  by  the  Favour  of 
God  and  His  Help''  but  there  follow  three  final  sec- 
tions of  apology,  the  first  for  delay  in  completing  the 
book,  the  second  for  its  defects,  and  the  third  for  all 
physicians  who  themselves  fall  victims  to  the  diseases 
they  treat  \ 

Subsequently  the  author  added  a  Conclusion,  or 
tenth  Book,  on  Materia  Medica,  divided  into  three 
parts,  the  first  dealing  with  animal  products,  the  second 
with  simple  vegetable  drugs,  and  the  third  with  com- 
pound medicaments. 

^  Cf.  the  Arabic  verses  on  pp.  8  and  9  supra,  and  the  foot-note  on  p.  59. 


112  Arabian  Medicine,    IV 

At  this  point  we  may  pause  to  consider  two  questions 
which  have  been  constantly  present  in  my  mind  during 
the  preparation  of  these  lectures.  The  first  question  is, 
how  far  can  the  fuller  study  of  Arabian  Medicine  be 
regarded  as  likely  to  repay  the  labour  it  involves?  The 
second  question  is,  supposing  it  to  be  worth  fuller  study, 
how  should  that  study  be  pursued  in  the  future,  and 
what  parts  of  the  subject  most  merit  attention  ? 

From  the  narrowest  utilitarian  point  of  view  it  is 
not  likely  that  even  the  profoundest  study  of  the  sub- 
ject will  yield  any  practical  results  of  importance,  seeing 
that  the  whole  system  is  based  on  a  rudimentary 
Anatomy,  an  obsolete  Physiology,  and  a  fantastic 
Pathology.  From  the  Arabian  Materia  Medica  and 
from  the  rules  of  Diet  and  Hygiene  some  hints  might 
possibly  be  gleaned ;  but  with  this  exception  we  must, 
I  fear,  admit  that  little  practical  advantage  can  be 
hoped  for.  Few  educated  people,  however,  and  certainly 
no  one  in  the  distinguished  audience  I  have  the  honour 
of  addressing,  will  take  this  narrow,  purely  utilitarian 
view,  of  which,  indeed,  the  very  existence  of  the  Fitz- 
Patrick  Lectures  is  a  negation.  That  the  Embryology 
of  Science,  the  evolution  of  our  present  Weltanschauungy 
is  a  proper  and  even  a  noble  subject  of  research  we 
shall  all  readily  admit;  but  still  the  question  remains 
whether  the  Arabs  did  more  than  transmit  the  wisdom 
of  the  Greeks,  and  whether  they  added  much  original 
matter  to  the  scientific  concepts  of  which  for  some  eight 
centuries  they  were  the  chief  custodians.  This,  un- 
fortunately, is  not  an  easy  question  to  answer,  and  much 
laborious  research  will  be  needed  ere  it  can  be  answered 
definitely.  For  such  research,  moreover,  a  combination 
of  qualifications  not  very  commonly  met  with  in  one 


Inadequacy  of  the  Latin  Translations  113 

individual  is  required,  to  wit,  a  scholarly  knowledge  of 
Greek,  Latin,  Syriac,  Arabic  and  Persian,  and,  if 
possible,  Sanskrit;  a  knowledge  of,  or  at  least  an 
interest  in  Medicine;  abundant  leisure;  voracious  and 
omnivorous  reading;  and  great  enthusiasm  and  industry. 
And  it  must  be  said  once  and  for  all  that  no  just  idea 
of  Arabian  Medicine  can  be  derived  from  the  very  im- 
perfect Latin  renderings  of  the  standard  Arabic  works. 
I  gave  one  example  in  a  previous  lecture  of  the  un- 
intelligible transcription  of  Arabic  words,  evidently  not 
understood,  into  Latin,  and  I  will  now  give  another. 
In  the  Latin  translation  of  the  QdnUn  of  Avicenna 
printed  at  Venice  in  1544,  on  f  198^  you  will  find, 
under  diseases  of  the  head  and  brain,  a  section  entitled 
* '  Sermo  universalis  de  Karabito  qui  est  apostema  capitis 
sirsem"  If  you  refer  to  the  corresponding  passage  of 
the  Arabic  text  (p.  302)  printed  at  Rome  in  1593,  you 
will  find  this  mysterious  disease  appearing  as  qardnitus 
(u«*^J!P).  But  the  true  reading,  given  in  a  fine  old  ms. 
which  I  recently  acquired,  is  farrdnitis  (^1^'^),  that 
is  <f)p€viTL<;,  frensy.  Such  is  the  havoc  wrought  in 
Arabic  letters  by  the  misplacement  of  dots  and  dia- 
critical points,  and  in  the  case  of  these  unfamiliar  Greek 
words  there  is  nothing  to  guide  the  Arabian  scribe  if  the 
word  be  indistinctly  written,  one  form  appearing  as  intelli- 
gible or  as  unintelligible  as  another.  Hence  the  student 
of  Arabic  medical  literature  must  begin  by  correcting  and 
re-editing  even  the  printed  texts  before  he  can  begin  to 
read  or  translate  them;  and  the  numerous  important 
books  which  exist  only  in  manuscript  will,  of  course, 
give  him  still  more  trouble,  since  to  consult  what  still 
survives  of  the  Hdwi  or  ''Continens"  of  Rdzi — the 
most  important  as  well  as  the  most  voluminous  Arabic 
work  on  Medicine — he  will  have  to  visit  not  only  the 


114  Arabian  Medicine.   IV 

British  Museum  and  the  Bodleian  Libraries, but  Munich 
and  the  Escorial,  and  even  then  he  will  not  have  seen  half 
of  this  great  work.  Nor  is  there  much  hope  that  critical 
editions  of  these  books  will  ever  be  published  unless 
Egyptian  medical  students  or  young  Indian  scholars  with 
a  taste  for  research  and  a  desire  to  render  service  to  the 
renown  of  Islamic  science  can  be  stimulated  by  material 
and  moral  support  to  undertake  this  laborious  and  un- 
remunerative  but  important  work.  As  an  example  of 
what  may  be  done  by  such  workers,  I  desire  to  call 
attention  to  Mawlawi  'Azlmu'd-Din  'Ahmad's  admirable 
Catalogue  of  the  Arabic  Medical  Works  in  the  Oriental 
Public  Library  at  Bankipore  (Calcutta,  1910),  a  fine 
and  scholarly  piece  of  work  carried  out  at  the  instiga- 
tion and  under  the  supervision  of  Sir  E.  Denison  Ross, 
at  that  time  Director  of  the  Muhammadan  Madrasa 
at  Calcutta,  but  now  of  the  London  School  of  Oriental 
Studies. 

Apart  from  new  elements,  not  of  Greek  origin, 
which  may  be  disclosed  by  a  more  minute  and  atten- 
tive study  of  Arabian  Medicine,  there  is  the  practical 
certainty  that  the  seven  books  of  Galen's  Anatomy^ 
lost  in  the  original,  but  preserved  in  an  Arabic  trans- 
lation and  published  with  a  German  translation  by  Dr 
Max  Simon  in  1906,  are  not  the  only  ancient  medical 
works  of  which  the  substance  if  not  the  form  may  be 
recovered  in  this  way.  And  we  must  further  remember 
that  the  Arab  translators,  who  were  at  work  nearly 
1200  years  ago,  were  in  contact  with  a  living  tradition 
which  went  back  from  Baghdad  to  Jundi-Shdpur,  thence 
to  Edessa  and  Antioch,  and  thence  to  Alexandria; 
and  that  this  tradition  may  well  serve  to  elucidate  many 
obscure  points  in  the  Greek  texts  still  preserved  to  us. 
Finally  the  clinical  observations  (embodied  especially  in 


Characteristics  of  Medieval  Science  115 

the  works  of  Razi)  have  an  intrinsic  value  of  their  own 
which  would  undoubtedly  repay  investigation.  On  all 
these  grounds,  then,  even  if  we  rate  the  originality  of 
Arabian  Medicine  at  the  lowest,  I  venture  to  think  that 
it  well  deserves  more  careful  and  systematic  study. 

In  considering  medieval  science  as  a  whole  we 
cannot  fail  to  be  struck  by  two  peculiarities  which  it 
presents,  the  solidarity  and  interdependence  of  all  its 
branches,  and  the  dominance  of  certain  numbers  in  its 
basic  conceptions.  The  sum  of  knowledge  was  not  then 
so  immense  as  to  defy  comprehension  by  one  individual, 
and  it  is  seldom  that  we  find  a  medieval  physician 
content  to  confine  his  attention  exclusively  to  the  medical 
sciences,  or  unwilling  to  include  in  his  studies  astronomy 
and  astrology,  music  and  mathematics,  and  even  ethics, 
metaphysics  and  politics.  It  is  said  in  the  Qurdn 
(xli,  53) :  "  We  will  show  them  Our  signs  in  the 
horizon  and  in  themselveSy'  and  this  has  encouraged 
many  of  the  mystically-mii)ded  amongst  the  Muslims  to 
seek  for  correspondences  not  only  between  stars,  plants, 
bodies  and  the  like,  but  between  the  material  and  spiritual 
worlds.  The  strange  sect  of  the  Isma'ilis  or  Esoterics 
{Bdtiniyya)y  out  of  which  were  developed  the  notorious 
Assassins,  instructed  their  missionaries  to  arouse  the 
curiosity  of  the  potential  proselyte  by  such  questions  as 
**  Why  has  a  man  seven  cervical  and  twelve  dorsal  verte- 
brae?" "  Why  has  each  of  the  fingers  three  joints,  but  the 
thumb  only  two  ? "  and  the  like ;  and  it  was  to  them  a  fact 
of  infinite  significance  that  the  number  of  joints  on  the  two 
hands  agreed  with  the  number  of  permanent  teeth,  the 
number  of  days  in  the  lunar  month,  and  the  number  of 
letters  in  the  Arabic  alphabet.  So  in  their  cosmogony  we 
notice  the  great  part  played  by  the  numbers  four,  seven 


ii6  Arabian  Medicine,    IV 

and  twelve.  Thus  we  have  the  four  Natural  Properties, 
Heat,  Cold,  Dryness  and  Moisture;  the  four  Elements; 
the  four  Seasons;  the  four  Humours;  the  four  Winds, 
and  the  like.  Also  the  seven  Planets,  the  seven  Climes, 
the  seven  Days  of  the  Week,  and  the  seven  Seas ;  the 
twelve  Signs  of  the  Zodiac,  the  twelve  Months  of  the 
Year,  and  so  on. 

According  to  the  conception  of  the  oldest  Arabian 
physicians,  it  is  the  four  Natural  Properties  rather  than 
what  are  commonly  called  the  four  Elements  which  are 
really  elemental.  This  is  very  plainly  stated  by  *Ali 
ibn  Rabban  at-Tabari  in  the  third  chapter  of  his 
** Paradise  of  Wisdom,"  where  he  says: 

"  The  simple  Natures  called  elemental  are  four,  two 
active,  to  wit,  Heat  and  Cold,  and  two  passive,  to  wit, 
Moisture  and  Dryness.  And  the  Compound  Natures 
also  are  four,  and  the  fact  that  they  are  called  '  com- 
pound '  shows  that  the  simple  ones  precede  them,  since 
the  compound  originates  from  the  simple.  Of  these 
Compound  Natures  the  first  is  Fire,  which  is  hot,  dry, 
light,  and  centrifugal  in  movement;  the  second  Air, 
which  is  hot,  moist  and  light,  moving  or  blowing  in 
every  direction ;  the  third  Water,  which  is  cold,  moist, 
heavy,  and  centripetal  in  movement;  and  the  fourth 
Earth,  which  is  cold,  dry  and  heavy,  and  moves  ever 
towards  the  lowest....  All  earthly  substances  are  sub- 
ordinate to  the  Fire,  and  are  affected  and  changed  by 
it.  And  the  Natural  Properties  are  four,  because  the 
Agent  becomes  active  only  through  the  Object  on  which 
it  acts.  The  two  active  Natural  Principles  are  Heat 
and  Cold,  whereof  each  has  its  own  proper  object, 
whence  the  Four." 

'*  These  Natures,"  continues  our  author  in  the  next 
chapter,  "are  mutually  hostile  and  antagonistic,  and 


Doctrine  of  Correspondences  117 

most  violently  so  when  this  antagonism  arises  simul- 
taneously from  two  sides  or  aspects ;  as,  for  instance, 
in  the  case  of  Fire,  which  is  antagonistic  both  by  its 
Heat  and  Dryness  to  the  Cold  and  Moisture  of  Water; 
or  Air,  which  is  antagonistic  both  by  its  Heat  and 
Moisture  to  the  Cold  and  Dryness  of  Earth.  But  if 
the  antagonism  be  on  one  side  only,  it  is  less  pronounced, 
as,  for  instance,  in  the  case  of  Air,  which  is  opposed  to 
Water  by  its  Heat,  but  agrees  with  it  in  its  Moisture. 
Therefore  hath  God  made  the  Air  a  barrier  between 
the  Water  and  the  Fire,  and  the  Water  a  barrier  between 
the  Earth  and  the  Air." 

Here  follows  a  diagram  which  may  be  further 
amplified  from  the  Kitdbu  t-tanbih  ('*  Livre  d'Aver- 
tissement'y  of  the  great  historian  and  geographer 
Mas'iidi,  who  wrote  in  the  middle  of  the  tenth  century 
of  our  era.  In  this  diagram  Heat  opposed  to  Cold  and 
Dryness  opposed  to  Moisture  constitute  the  four  cardinal 
points.  Compounded  of  Heat  and  Dryness  on  the 
different  Planes  or  orders  of  Phenomena  are  Fire  of  the 
Four  Elements,  Summer  of  the  Four  Seasons,  the 
South  of  the  Four  Regions,  Youth  of  the  Four  Ages 
of  Man,  and  the  Yellow  Bile  of  the  Four  Humours. 
Similarly  from  Dryness  and  Cold  we  have  Earth, 
Autumn,  the  West,  the  Mature  Age,  and  the  Black  Bile; 
from  Cold  and  Moisture,  Water,  Winter,  the  North, 
Old  Age  and  the  Phlegm ;  and  from  Heat  and  Moisture, 
Air,  Spring,  the  East,  Childhood  and  the  Blood. 

The  Universe  or  Macrocosm,  according  to  this  con- 
ception, comprises  the    Earth  or  Terrestrial    Sphere 

1  The  Arabic  text,  printed  at  Leyden  in  1894,  constitutes  vol.  viii 
of  the  late  Professor  de  Goeje's  Bibliotheca  Geographorum  Arabicorum. 
The  French  translation  by  Carra  de  Vaux  was  published  in  Paris  in 
1896  under  the  title  Le  Livre  de  V Avertissement  et  de  la  Revision. 


BAM 


ii8  Arabian  Medicine.    IV 

surrounded  by  twelve  concentric  enveloping  spheres, 
namely,  the  Aqueous,  Aerial  and  Igneous  Spheres,  the 
Seven  Planetary  Spheres,  beginning  with  that  of  the 
Moon  and  ending  with  that  of  Saturn,  the  Zodiacal 
Sphere  or  Sphere  of  the  Fixed  Stars,  and  outside  all 
the  Falakul-Afldk  ("  the  Heaven  of  the  Heavens  ")  or 
al'Falaktcl- Atlas  (**the  Plain,"  or  Starless,  ** Heaven"), 
the  Empyrean  of  Ptolemy,  beyond  which,  according  to 
the  common  opinion,  is  al-Khald,  ''the  Vacuum,"  or  Ld 
Khald  wa  Id  Maid,  "neither  Vacuum  nor  Plenum."  The 
generation  of  terrestrial  existences  is  supposed  to  have 
been  brought  about  by  the  interaction  of  the  Seven 
Planets,  or  "  Seven  Celestial  Sires,"  and  the  Four 
Elements,  or  "Four  Terrestrial  Mothers,"  from  which 
resulted  the  "Threefold  Progeny,  "or  the  Mineral,  Vege- 
table and  Animal  Kingdoms.  The  first  of  these  was 
produced  in  the  interspace  between  the  Terrestrial  and 
the  Aqueous  Spheres,  the  second  between  the  Aqueous 
and  Aerial  Spheres,  and  the  third  between  the  Aerial 
and  Igneous  Spheres.  The  process  of  Evolution  from 
Mineral  to  Plant,  from  Plant  to  Animal  and  from  Animal 
to  Man  is  clearly  recognized,  and  is  fully  discussed  by 
Dieterici  in  the  ninth  book  of  his  exposition  of  Arabian 
Philosophy,  as  taught  by  the  encyclopaedists  of  Baghdad 
in  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries  of  our  era,  entitled 
Der  Darwinismus  im  zehnten  und  neunzehnten  Jahr- 
hundert^.  In  the  twelfth-century  Persian  work  entitled 
the  "  Four  Discourses,"  which  I  have  already  had 
occasion  to  cite,  attempts  are  even  made  to  identify  the 
"  missing  links,"  coral  being  regarded  as  intermediate 
between  the  mineral  and  vegetable  kingdoms ;  the  vine, 
which  seeks  to  avoid  and  escape  from  the  fatal  embrace 
of  a  kind  of  bind-weed  called  'ashaqa,  as  intermediate 

■^  Leipzig,  1878. 


Principles  of  Arabian  Medicine  119 

between  the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms;  and  the 
nasndSy  a  kind  of  ape  or  wild  man,  as  intermediate  be- 
tween man  and  the  beasts. 

The  general  principles  which  constitute  the  basis  of 
Arabian  Medicine  are  the  outcome  of  these  conceptions, 
and  the  opening  chapters  of  every  great  systematic  work 
on  the  subject  deal  largely  with  the  doctrine  of  the 
** Temperaments"  or  ''Complexions"  [Mizdj,^\uY2XAm' 
2ija), the  Natural  FropertiQs{Taddyi'),aind  the  Humours 
{Akkldt),  Mizdjy  which  is  still  the  common  word  for 
health  in  Arabic,  Persian  and  Turkish,  is  derived  from 
a  root  meaning  **to  mix,"  and  indicates  a  state  of  equi- 
librium between  the  four  Natural  Properties  or  the 
four  Humours;  while  if  this  equilibrium  is  upset  by  the 
preponderance  of  one  of  the  Natural  Properties  or  the 
Humours,  a  disturbance  entitled  Inhirdfu  l-Mizdj,  or 
"  Deflection  of  the  temperamental  equilibrium,"  is  pro- 
duced. But  even  the  normal  healthy  Mizdj  is  not 
practically  a  constant  quantity,  each  region,  season,  age, 
individual  and  organ  having  its  own  special  and  appro- 
priate type.  Nine  types  of  Complexion  are  recognized, 
namely  the  equable  (mu'tadil),  which  is  practically  non- 
existent; the  four  simple  Complexions,  hot,  cold,  dry  and 
moist ;  and  the  four  compound,  namely  the  hot  and  dry, 
the  hot  and  moist,  the  cold  and  dry,  and  the  cold  and 
moist.  Excluding  the  rare  case  of  a  perfect  equilibrium, 
every  individual  will  be  either  of  the  Bilious  Complexion, 
which  is  hot  and  dry;  the  Atrabilious  or  Melancholic, 
which  is  cold  and  dry;  the  Phlegmatic,  which  is  cold 
and  moist;  or  the  Sanguine,  which  is  hot  and  moist. 
In  treating  a  hot,  cold,  dry  or  moist  disease  with  a  food 
or  drug  of  the  opposite  quality,  regard  must  be  paid  to 
these  idiosyncrasies.  The  Natural  Property  inherent 
in  each  food  or  drug  exists  in  one  of  four  degrees.  Thus, 


I20  Arabian  Medicine.    IV 

for  example,  such  a  substance  if  hot  in  the  first  degree 
is  a  food ;  if  hot  in  the  second  degree,  both  a  food  and 
a  medicine ;  if  hot  in  the  third  degree,  a  medicine,  not 
a  food ;  if  hot  in  the  fourth  degree,  a  poison.  Another 
four-fold  division  of  substances  which  react  on  the  human 
body  is  into  those  which  act  beneficially  both  internally 
and  externally,  like  wheat,  which  in  the  stomach  is  a 
food  and  externally  a  poultice  to  '*  ripen"  wounds  or 
sores;  those  which  are  beneficial  internally  but  mis- 
chievous externally,  like  garlic,  which,  taken  internally, 
increases  the  natural  Heat,  but  applied  externally  acts 
as  a  poison;  those  which  are  poisons  internally  but 
antidotes  externally,  like  Litharge  [Murddsang)  and 
Verdigris  or  Acetate  of  Copper  {Zangdr) ;  and  lastly 
those  which  both  externally  and  internally  act  as  poisons, 
like  Aconite  {Bisk)  and  Ergot  {Quriln-i-Sunbul). 

The  third  Discourse  (Guftdr)  of  the  First  Book  of 
the  "  Thesaurus  "  is  devoted  to  the  discussion  of  the 
four  Humours.  It  comprises  six  chapters,  four  treating 
in  turn  of  each  of  the  Humours,  one  (the  first)  of  their 
nature,  and  one  (the  last)  of  their  production  and 
differentiation.  The  first  chapter  is  so  short  that  it  may 
be  translated  in  full.  "  Humour,"  says  the  author,  "  is 
a  moisture  circulating  in  the  human  body  and  naturally 
located  in  the  veins  and  hollow  organs,  such  as  the 
stomach,  liver,  spleen  and  gall-bladder;  and  it  is  pro- 
duced from  the  food.  Some  Humours  are  good  and  some 
bad.  The  good  are  those  which  nourish  man's  body  and 
take  the  place  of  the  fluids  which  are  expended.  The 
bad  are  those  which  are  useless  for  this  purpose,  and  these 
are  the  Humours  of  which  the  body  must  be  cleansed 
by  drugs.  The  Humours  are  four,  Blood,  Phlegm, 
Yellow  Bile  and  Black  Bile."  According  to  al-Majiisi's 
**  Liber  Regius"  they  are  the  proximate,  or  secondary,  and 


Theory  of  the  Fou7'  Humours  121 

special  elements  (ustuqussdt,  cnoiy^a)  of  the  bodies  of  all 
warm-blooded  animals,  as  contrasted  with  the  remote, 
or  primary,  and  common  elements,  Earth,  Air,  Fire  and 
Water,  with  which  they  severally  correspond,  as  already 
explained,  and  from  which  they  arise,  being  therefore 
called  the  ''Daughters  of  the  Elements"  [Bandtul- 
Arkdn). 

Stated  briefly,  the  theory  of  the  production  and  dis- 
tribution of  the  four  Humours  is  as  follows.  In  the 
stomach  the  food  undergoes  a  ''first  digestion"  whereby 
the  more  nutritious  part  of  it  is  converted  into  chyle, 
called  by  the  Arabs  Kay  Ms  \hu\.,  besides  the  unnutritious 
residue  which  is  rejected,  a  portion  is  converted  into 
Phlegm,  which  differs  from  the  other  three  Humours 
in  having  no  special  location,  such  as  the  Blood  has  in 
the  liver,  the  Yellow  Bile  in  the  gall-bladder,  and  the 
Black  Bile  in  the  spleen.  The  chyle  is  conveyed  to  the 
liver  by  the  portal  vein,  which  receives  the  veins  of 
the  stomach  and  mesentery,  and  there  it  undergoes  a 
*' second  digestion"  or  coction,  which  divides  it  into 
three  portions,  a  scum  or  froth  which  is  the  Yellow  Bile ; 
a  sediment,  which  is  the  Black  Bile;  and  the  Blood, 
which  contains  its  choicest  ingredients.  The  Blood 
passes  on  by  the  Superior  Vena  Cava  to  the  heart, 
having  dismissed  its  more  aqueous  part  to  the  kidneys 
for  excretion,  and  is  thence  distributed  by  the  arteries 
to  the  various  organs,  in  which  it  undergoes  a  fourth 
and  final  coction  or  "  digestion  "  (the  third  having  taken 
place  in  the  blood-vessels).  In  the  normal  body  the 
Humours  exist  in  a  state  of  mixture,  save  that  a  reserve 
of  Yellow  Bile  is  stored  in  the  gall-bladder  and  of  Black 
Bile  in  the  spleen;  but  the  separation  and  elimination 
ofanyHumour  can  be  effected  by  appropriate  therapeutic 
agents,  drugs  or  otherwise.     Each    Humour  may  be 


122  Arabian  Medicine.   IV 

natural  and  normal,  or  unnatural  and  abnormal.  The 
normal  Blood  is  of  two  kinds,  the  one  dark  red  and 
thick,  occurring  in  the  liver  and  veins;  the  other  moister, 
warmer,  more  fluid,  and  of  a  brighter  red,  occurring  in 
the  heart  and  arteries.  Blood  may  become  abnormal 
simply  through  excess  of  heat  or  cold,  or  by  admixture 
with  superfluous  bilious,  atrabilious  or  phlegmatic  matter. 
Of  the  Phlegm  four  abnormal  qualities  are  recognized, 
the  aqueous,  the  mucous,  the  vitreous  and  the  calcareous ; 
and  of  the  Yellow  Bile  the  same  number. 

Here  follow,  alike  in  the  Qdn^n  and  the  ''Thesaurus," 
the  sections  dealing  with  general  and  special  Anatomy, 
the  subject-matter  of  which  is  accessible  to  the  general 
reader  in  Dr  P.  de  Koning's  excellent  work  Trois 
traitds  dAnatomie  Arabes.  Thanks  to  him  and  to  Dr 
Max  Simon,  this  branch  of  Arabian  Medicine  has  been 
more  thoroughly  elucidated  than  any  other,  and  I  may 
therefore  pass  on  to  the  sections  on  the  Natural  Functions 
and  Virtues,  or  Faculties,  which  complete  what  may  be 
called  the  General  Physiology  of  the  Arabian  physicians. 
These  Functions  or  Virtues  are  primarily  divided  into 
three  classes,  the  Natural,  common  to  the  Animal  and 
Vegetable  kingdoms;  the  Animal,  peculiar  to  the 
Animal  kingdom ;  and  the  Psychical,  some  of  which  are 
common  to  man  and  the  higher  animals,  while  others 
are  peculiar  to  man.  The  Natural  Virtues  are  the  Nu- 
tritive and  the  Reproductive,  the  first  including  the 
Attractive,  Retentive,  Digestive  and  Expulsive.  The 
Animal  Virtues  or  Functions  are  the  active,  connected 
with  the  phenomena  of  Respiration  and  Circulation,  and 
the  passive,  connected  with  the  simpler  emotions  of 
Fear,  Anger,  Disgust,  and  the  like,  common  to  men 
and  animals.  The  Psychic  Virtues  or  Functions  include 
motor  or  sensory  powers  common  to  all  animals,  and  the 


Theory  of  Respiration  and  Circulation         123 

higher  mental  faculties,  Thought,  Memory,  Imagination 
and  the  like,  peculiar  to  man.  Corresponding  with  the 
Five  External  Senses,  Taste,  Touch,  Hearing,  Smelling 
and  Seeing,  are  the  Five  Internal  Senses,  of  which  the 
first  and  second,  the  compound  sense  (or  *'  Sensus 
Communis")  and  the  Imagination,  are  located  in  the 
anterior  ventricle  of  the  brain;  the  third  and  fourth, 
the  Co-ordinating  and  Emotional  Faculties,  in  the  mid- 
brain; and  the  fifth,  the  Memory,  in  the  hind-brain\ 
Here  there  exists  some  confusion  between  the  nomen- 
clature adopted  by  physicians  and  metaphysicians,  which 
Avicenna  especially  emphasizes,  impressing  on  the 
former,  to  whom  his  Qdnun  is  addressed,  that  their 
concern  is  less  with  abstract  philosophical  ideas  than 
with  what  lies  within  the  scope  of  actual  practice. 

Here  I  should  like  to  call  your  attention  to  a  rather 
remarkable  passage^  in  the  Kitdbu  l-Maliki,  or  *'  Liber 
Regius,"  of  'AH  ibnu'l-'Abbas  al-Majusi,  who  died  in 
A.D.  982,  about  the  time  when  Avicenna  was  born.  This 
passage,  which  occurs  in  the  chapter  treating  of  the 
Animal  Virtues  or  Vital  Functions,  deals  chiefly  with 
the  two  opposite  movements  of  expansion  (inbisdt)  and 
contraction  (inqibdd),  which  in  the  heart  and  arteries 
constitute  diastole  and  systole,  and  in  the  respiratory 
organs  inspiration  and  expiration.  These  movements 
are  compared  to  those  of  a  bellows,  except  that  they  are 
produced  by  an  internal,  not  by  an  external,  force ;  and 
it  is,  of  course,  supposed  by  the  writer  that  the  heart 
draws  air  from  the  lungs  to  mix  with  the  blood  for  the 
elaboration  of  the  Vital  Spirit,  just  as  the  lungs  inhale 
it  from  without,  and  that  the  **  vaporized  superfluities  " 
{al-fuditlu  d-dukhdniyya)^  or  vitiated  air,  are  expelled  by 

^  See  my  Year  amongst  the  Persians^  pp.  144-5. 
^  Vol.  i,  pp.  138-9  of  the  Cairo  edition. 


124  Arabian  Medicine.    IV 

the  reverse  process.  Having  concluded  his  remarks  on 
Respiration,  the  author  continues  as  follows : 

**  And  you  must  know  that  during  the  diastole  such 
of  the  pulsating  vessels  (i.e.  the  arteries)  as  are  near  the 
heart  draw  in  air  and  sublimated  blood  from  the  heart 
by  compulsion  of  vacuum,  because  during  the  systole 
they  are  emptied  of  blood  and  air,  but  during  the  diastole 
the  blood  and  air  return  and  fill  them.  Such  of  them 
as  are  near  the  skin  draw  air  from  the  outer  atmosphere ; 
while  such  as  are  intermediate  in  position  between  the 
heart  and  the  skin  have  the  property  of  drawing  from 
the  non-pulsating  vessels  (j..e.  the  veins)  the  finest  and 
most  subtle  of  the  blood.  This  is  because  in  the  non- 
pulsating  vessels  (2.^.  the  veins)  are  pores  communicating 
with  the  pulsating  vessels  (i.e.  the  arteries).  The  proof 
of  this  is  that  when  an  artery  is  cut,  all  the  blood  which 
is  in  the  veins  also  is  evacuated." 

Here,  as  it  seems  to  me,  we  clearly  have  a  rudi- 
mentary conception  of  the  capillary  system. 

Corresponding  with  the  three  categories  of  Faculties 
or  Virtues  are  three  Spirits,  the  Natural,  the  Animal 
and  the  Psychical,  the  first  elaborated  in  the  Liver  and 
thence  conveyed  by  the  Veins  to  the  Heart;  the  second 
elaborated  in  the  Heart  and  conveyed  by  the  carotid 
arteries  to  the  Brain,  and  the  third  elaborated  in  the 
Brain  and  thence  conveyed  by  the  nerves  to  all  parts 
of  the  body.  These,  and  their  relation  one  to  another, 
and  to  the  immortal  Spirit  or  Intelligence  of  which  the 
existence  is  generally  recognized,  are  but  briefly  dis- 
cussed by  Avicenna  and  the  other  medical  writers  whom 
I  have  chiefly  cited.  The  fullest  discussion  of  these 
matters,  appertaining  rather  to  Philosophy  and  Psy- 
chology than  Medicine,  I  have  found  in  a  very  rare 
Arabic  work  on  the  generation  and  development  of 


The  Soul  and  the  Animal  Spirit  125 

man  by  Abu'l-Hasan  Sa'id  ibn  Hibatu'llah,  court- 
physician  to  the  Caliph  al-Muqtadi,  who  flourished  in 
the  second  half  of  the  eleventh  century \  This  work 
entitled  Maqdla  fi  Khalqi  l-Insdn  ("  Discourse  on  the 
Creation  of  Man  ")  deals  chiefly  with  the  processes  of 
Reproduction,  Gestation,  Parturition,  Growth  and 
Decay,  but  the  last  ten  of  the  fifty  chapters  into  which 
it  is  divided  deal  with  Psychology,  including  arguments 
in  favour  of  the  survival  of  Intelligence  after  Death  and 
against  Metempsychosis.  The  life  of  the  body,  according 
to  this  writer,  depends  on  the  Animal  Spirit  and  ends 
with  its  departure  ''through  the  channels  whereby  the 
air  reaches  the  Heart,"  i,e.  through  the  mouth  and 
nostrils.  This  conception  is  embodied  in  the  common 
Arabic  phrase  Mdf-  half''  anfi-hi,  '*He  died  a  nose- 
death,"  i.e.  a  natural  death,  the  Animal  Spirit  escaping 
through  the  nose  and  not  through  a  wound.  So  also 
we  have  the  common  Persian  expression  Jdn  bar  lab 
d7nada,  meaning  one  whose  spirit  has  reached  his  lips 
and  is  on  the  brink  of  departure. 

My  allotted  hour  runs  out,  and  I  must  conclude  this 
very  inadequate  sketch  of  Arabian  Medicine  which  it 
has  been  my  privilege  and  my  pleasure  to  present  to 
you.  I  hope  that  you  may  have  found  in  it,  if  not  much 
useful  instruction,  at  least  a  little  entertainment.  With 
great  misgiving  and  some  unwillingness  I  undertook 
the  task  at  the  instigation  of  my  teacher  and  friend  Sir 
Norman  Moore,  the  President  of  this  College,  to  whose 
inspiration  I  owe  so  much  since  my  student  days  in  St 
Bartholomew's  Hospital.  I  have  been  amply  rewarded 
by  the  task  itself,  and  it  shall  not  be  my  fault  if  it  is 

'  His  life  is  given  by  Ibn  Abi  Usaybi'a  in  his  Classes  of  Physicians 
(vol.  i,  pp.  254-5  of  the  Cairo  edition). 


BAM       10 


126  Arabian  Medicine,    IV 

laid  aside  because  its  immediate  purpose  is  fulfilled. 
More  remains  to  be  accomplished  in  this  branch  of 
Arabic  studies  than  in  any  other  of  equal  importance 
and  much  pioneer  work  is  required  ere  we  can  hope  to 
reach  the  ultimate  conclusions  which  are  so  important 
for  the  history  of  scientific  thought  throughout  the  ages. 
Above  all  there  has  grown  in  me  while  communing  with 
the  minds  of  these  old  Arabian  and  Persian  physicians 
a  realization  of  the  solidarity  of  the  human  intelligence 
beyond  all  limitations  of  race,  space  or  time,  and  of  the 
essential  nobility  of  the  great  profession  represented  by 
this  College. 


INDEX 


A  hyphen  prefixed  to  a  name  or  word  indicates  that  it  should  be  preceded  by 
the  Arabic  definite  article  al-.  The  prefixes  Abii  ("father  of..."),  Ibn  ("son  of..."), 
Umm  ("mother  of...")  in  Arabic,  and  de,  le,  von  in  European  names,  are 
disregarded  in  the  alphabetical  arrangement.  Names  common  to  two  or  more 
persons  mentioned  in  the  text  are,  to  save  repetition,  grouped  under  one  heading, 
which,  in  these  cases,  is  printed  in  Clarendon  type,  as  are  the  more  important 
reference  numbers.  Arabic  and  Persian  words  and  titles  of  books  are  printed  in 
italics.  Roman  numbers  following  a  name  indicate  the  century  of  the  Christian 
era  in  which  the  person  flourished  or  the  book  was  written. 


Abaqa  (Mongol  ll-Khan  of  Persia,  xiii), 

103 
'Abbasid  Caliphs  (viii-xiii),  2,  5,  14,  17, 

23»  25.  57.  91.  97 
'Abdu'Uah  ibn  Sawada  (patient  of  -Razi, 

x),  51-2 
'Abdu'l-Wahhdb  of  Qazwfn  (xix),  36 
'Abdu'r-Rahmdn  (vii),  16;  — Efendi 

Isma'il  (Egyptian  doctor  and  writer, 

1892),  65 
"Aben  Guefit,"  97.  See  Ibnu'l-Wdfid 
Abgas,  anfas    (Arabic    corruptions    of 

d/ii/eios),  34 
•Ablaq  (Arab  magician,  vii-viii),  17 
"Abulcasis,"    97.     See    Abu'l-Qasim 

-Zahrdwf 
Acetate  of  Copper  {zangdr)^  120 
Achaemenian  dynasty  of  Persia  (vi-iv 

B.C.),  19,  22 
Achundow,    Dr    Abdul-Chalig   (trans- 
lator into  German  of  the  oldest  extant 

Persian  work   on  Materia  Medica), 

74  n.,  77,  93 
Aconite  {bisk),  120 
'Adudu'd-Dawla  Fanakhusraw  (of  the 

Buwayhid  dynasty,  x) ,  45  n. ,  46,  53, 54 
Africa,  North  —  {-Maghrib),  68, 97, 106- 

7.    See  also  Qayruwan,  Tunis 
Africanus.    See  Constantinus 
Aghrdd-i-  Tibb  ("Aims  of  Medicine,"  by 

Sayyid  Isma'il  of  Jurjdn,  q.v.),  99- 
Ahmad  ibn  Tulun  (ruler  of  Egypt,  ix), 

loi,  102 


Ahrun    the    Priest    (medical    writer), 

55 
Ahura  Mazda  (Ormazd,  the  Zoroastrian 

name  of  God),  44 
Ahwaz  (in  S.W.  Persia),  54,  76 
Akhldq-i-Jaldli  (Manual  of  Ethics,  xv), 

84 
'Ala'u'd-Dawla  ibn  K^kuya  (patron  of 

Avicenna,  xi),  89 
'Ala'u'd-DIn  Hindu,  Khwaja  —  (xiv), 

104;  — ,  Malik  (India,  xiii-xiv),  106, 

108 
"Albucasis,"    97.      See    Abu'l-Qasim 

-Zahrdwf 
Alchatim  (Latin  corruption  oi  al-qatan, 

the  loins),  34 
Alchemy,  15,  19,  46 
Alcohol  (Arabic  al-kuht),  15 
Alembic,  15 
Aleppo  {Halab)^  73 
Alexander   of  Macedon,    22 ;    —    of 

Tralles,  28 
Alexandria,  17,  18  and  n.,  93,  114 
Al-kagiazt,  alhauis  (Latin  corruptions 

oi al-^ajiz,  the  sacrum),  34 
Alhasch  (Latin  corruption  of  al-Hshq^ 

love),  85 
Alhosos  (Latin  corruption  of  al-^us^us, 

the  coccyx),  34 
'All  ibn  Abf  Talib  (the  Prophet's  cousin 

and  son-in-law,  vii),  9;  —  ibn  Rabban 

(teacher  of  -Razi  and  author  of  the 

Firdawsu^l-Hikmat,  q.v.^  or  "  Para- 


128 


Arabian  Medicine 


disc  of  Wisdom,"  ix),  37-39,  d^-, 
117;  —  ibn  Veh-Sudhan  (ruler  of 
Tabaristan  and  patron  of -Razi,  x),  48; 

—  ibn  -'Abbas-Majusf  (called  "Haly 
Abbas  "  by  the  Latino-Barbari,  author 
of  the  Kdmihi's-Sind^at,  q.v.,  or 
Kiidb-Maliki,  or  "Liber  Regius," x), 
32, 49'  53-57,  62, 66, 92, 98,  109,  120, 
123;  — ibn  Ma'mun  Khwarazmshah 
(xi),  59 ;  —  ibn  Rashidu'd-Din,  Amir 

—  (xiv),  105 

Abu     'AK    Husayn    ibn    Sina.     See 

Avicenna 
Almagest,  58 
Aloes,  12 
Alsaharavius,    97.      See    Abu'l-Qasim 

-Zahrawi 
Amiru'l-M^'mintn,  ~  -KdfiHn  ("Com- 
mander of  the  Faithful,"  "—  of  the 

Unbelievers"),  5 
Amnesia,  42 
'Amr  ibnu'l-*As  (Muslim  conqueror  of 

Egypt,  vii),  17 
Anatomy,  3,  28,  32,  55,  93,  114,  122. 

SeeDissection,  Galen,  de  Koning, 

Simon 
Andalusia,  106 
Anfas.   See  Abgas,  supra. 
'Anhuri,  Hunayn,  or  Yuhanna(  Egyptian 

translator  from  French   and  Italian 

into  Arabic,  xix),  95 
'Antara  ibn  Shadd^d,  verses  ascribed 

to  —  on  impotence  of  physicians,  8 
Antimony  (for  ophthalmia),  12 
Antioch,  20,  69,  71,  114 
Anusharwdn  (Nvishirwan),  Khusraw  — 

(S^sanian  king,  vi),  11,  20,  21 
Apes  used  for  dissection,  37 
Aphorisms  of  Hippocrates  {Ftestil),  2 1 , 

26,  28,  29,  81 
Apoplexy,  78 

Arabian  Empire  (vii-xiii),  4-6 
Arabian  Medicine,  what  is  meant  by  — , 

2-4,  65 
"Arabian  Nights"  {AlfLayla  wa  Layld) , 

25,  31-2 
Arabic  language,  nobility  and  poten- 
tiality of—,  10,  29-30;  —  proverbs,  i, 
2,  63;  —  verses  cited,  8,  9,  30-31 


Arabs,  character  of  primitive  — ,  10, 17, 
29 ;  —  their  limitations,  7-8 

Aramaic,  8,  22.    See  Syriac 

Ardashir  Babak^n  (Artakhshatr  Papa- 
k^n,  founder  of  Sasanian  dynasty,  iii), 
19,  23n. 

Arghun  (Mongol  Il-Khan  of  Persia, 
xiii),  105 

Aristotle,  17,  37,  39,  57,  64,  79,  81 

Asad  ibn  Jani  (Arab  physician),  8 

Asadf  (poet  and  copyist,  xi),  93 

^Ashaqa  (a  kind  of  bindweed,  said  by 
Lane  to  be  Dolichos),  118 

Ash'ari  (narrower  and  more  orthodox 
school  of  Muslim  theology),  5 

Asia  Minor  (Riim),  98,  104,  105,  106, 
108 

Assassins,  sect  of  — ,  115 

Asthma,  43 

Atabeks  of  Fars  (xiii),  107 

"Avenzoar"  (Ibn  Zuhr),  97 

"Averroes"  (Ibn  Rushd),  97 

Avesta  (Zoroastrian  scriptures),  22,  44 

Avicenna  (Abu'  *Ali  Husayn  ibn  Sina, 
called  -Shaykh-Ra'is,  the  "Chief 
Master,"  and  -Mu*allim-Thdni,  the 
"Second  Teacher,"  i.e.  after  Aris- 
totle, xi),  4,  27,  32,  34,  44-45»  47>  54» 
57-64,  66,  67,  68,  78  n.,  81,  84-89, 
91,  92,  93,  98, 103,  109, 113,  123,  124 

'Aw^sim  (Asia  Minor),  108 

'  Awfi,  Muhammad  —  (author  of  an  im- 
mense collection  of  stories  in  Persian 
entitled  Jawdmi^'uH-Hikdydt  wa 
Lawdmi'u'r-Riwdydt,  xiii),  75,  78-79 

'Azimu'd-Din  Ahmad  {Catalogue  of  the 
Arabic  Medical  Works  in  the  Oriental 
Public  Library  at  Bankipore,  Cal- 
cutta, 1 9 10),  114 

Baalbek  (Ba'labakk,  in  Syria),  27 

Babak  (heresiarch,  ix),  38 

Badr,  Battle  of  —  (vii),  1 1 

Baghdad  (capital  of  'Abbasid  Caliphs 
from  middle  of  eighth  to  thirteenth 
centuries),  2,  5,  6,  14,  17,  19,  23,  25, 
38,  40,  45»  54,  66,  74,  77,  91,  95,  104, 
105,  114 

Balkh,  58 


Index 


129 


Bankipore  Oriental  Public  Library,  114 
Bar  Hebraeus  (xiii),  100-10 1 
Barmecides  [Al-i-Barmak,  viii-ix),  57 
Basra,  27,  104,  108 
Bdtiniyya  ("Esoterics"),  115 
Ibn  Batuta  (Arab  traveller,  xiv),  loi 
Ibnu'l-Ba)rtir  (of  Malaga,  botanist),  98 
Baytu'l-Hikmai  ("  House  of  Wisdom," 

the  Royal  Library  at  Baghdad,  ix),  5 
Bedouin.   See  Arabs,  primitive 
Berlin  library,  49,  61  n.,  66. 
Bernard  (treasurer  of  Count  Foulques  of 

Anjou,  xii),  71 
Berthelot  {Hist,  de  la  Chimie  au  Moyen 

Age\  15 
Beth  Lapat,  20.    See  Jundi  Sdbdr 
Bevan,  Prof.  A.  A.  — ,  vii,  17  n. 
Blmdristan  (hospital)  of  Jundi-Sabur, 

23 ;  of  Baghdad,  45,  46,  54 ;  of  Cairo, 

101-2 
Bfra  (Aramaic  or  Syriac  name),  8 
-Bininf,  Abii  Rayh^n —  (astronomer  and 

chronologist,  x-xi),  6 
Bistam  (in  N.E.  Persia),  75 
Bodleian  Library,  48,  49,  67,  91,  114 
Boswellia  thurifera  {Kundur),  51,  52 
Brescia,  48 

British  Museum,  26,  28,  49,  61,  66,  114 
Brock elmann  {Gesch.  d.  Arab.  Liil.),  3, 

54,  60,  72 
Budge,  Dr  E.  Wallis  — ,  19,  22. 
Buhdr  (sea-sickness),  35 
Bukhara,  58,  82 
-Bukhari    (traditionist,  author  of    the 

Sahih)^  12 
Bukht-Yishu'  (family  which   produced 

several  notable  physicians,  viii-xi),  23. 

See  also  Jibra'fl,  Jiirjis 
Burhdn-i-Qdti*'  (Persian  lexicon),  78  n. 
Burton,      Sir      Richard  —  ("  Arabian 

Nights"),  32  n. 
Bury,  Professor  — ,  18 
Burzuya  (physician  of  Khusraw  Anu- 

sharw^  the  Sasanian>  vi),  2 1 
Ibn  Butlan  (Arab  physician,  xi),  72-3 
Buwayhid  (or  Daylamite)  dynasty  (x- 

xi),  45,  53i  88.    See  also  'Adudu'd- 

Dawla 
Byzantines,  21,  67 


Caesar,  4 

Caesarea  {Qaysariyya),  108 

Caesarean  section,  79 

Cairo,  94,  95,  101-102 

Calcutta,  114 

Caliphate  {Khildjat),  4 

Caliphs  {Khalifa^  pi.  Khulafd),  the 
Four  Orthodox,  9 ;  Umayyad  — ,  9, 
1 4,  15,  16,  19;  'Abbasid  — ,  see 
*Abbdsid  Caliphs,  supra 

Cambridge  University  Library,  48,  99 

Cancer  {Sarafdn),  43 

Capillary  system  adumbrated  in  tenth 
century  by  'All  ibnu'I-' Abbas,  124 

Cardiac  Drugs,  Avicenna's  work  on 
— ,  61 

Carra  de  Vaux,  Baron  — ,  1 1 7  n. 

Caspian  Sea,  37,  85 

Catarrh,  35,  43 

Catholic  Press,  Beyrout,  loi 

Cautery,  12 

Chahdr Maqdla  ("  Four  Discourses,"  by 
Nizami-i-'Arudi  of  Samarqand,  xii), 
50,  59 n.,  62-64,  75  n.,  79-8o,  84-85, 
88-89,  99,  118 

Chaldaea  (Sawdd),  27 

Channing  (translation  and  text  of 
-Razi's  De  Pestilentid)^  47 

Charrae  (ffarrdn),  27 

China,  106,  109 

Chosroes,  4,  11,  20.    See  Khusraw 

Christian  physicians  eminent  in  early 
Muslim  times,  2,  8,  17-18,  21, 24,  26, 
27>  38.  66,  100;  —  for  the  most  part 
ignorant  in  time  of  Crusades,  70-72  ; 
—  of  Byzantium  amazed  at  Arabian 
love  of  learning,  67 ;  —  of  St  John  the 
Baptist,  27;  see  also  -Mughtasila, 
Sabaeans 

Chrysorrhoas,  John  of  Damascus  so 
called,  15 

Chwolson  {Ssabier  und  Ssabtsmus)y 
27 

Chyle  {ITayMs),  121 

"Civitas  Hippocratica,"  23,  68 

Clot  Bey,  94-95,  102 

Coccyx  {'us* us),  34 

Colic  {qulunj)y  43,  48,  59 

Colocynth,  78 


I30 


Arabian  Medicine 


'•Complexions,"   or   "Temperaments" 

{MizdJ,  pi.  Amzija),  119 
Constantinople,  67,  107 
Constantinus  Africanus,  68 
"  Continens"  of  Rhazes.   See  -Hawi  of 

Cordova  [Qurtuba),  97,  106 
Correspondences,  1 1 5-1 1 7 
Cowley,  Dr  — ,  49 
Crises,  43 
Crusaders,  68-72 
Ctesias,  22 

Ctesiphon  (-Mada'in),  14 
Cupping  {kijdma),  12,  43 

Damascus,  9,  14,  100,  102 
Ddnish-7idma-i-'Alai   (by    Avicenna), 

60  and  n. 
Dante,  87 

Daphne  oleoides  (Mezereon),  77 
Darwinism  foreshadowed,  118-119 
Date-palm,  fecundation  of — ,  13 
"  Daughters  of  the  Elements"  {Bandtu'l- 
ArMn)y  the  four  Humours  so  called, 
121 
Derenbourg,  M.  Hartwig  — ,  69 
Dhakhira-i-Khwdrazmshdhi     (Persian 
"Thesaurus"  of  Medicine,  xii),  6-7, 
81,  86-87,  92,  98-99,  109-111 
Dieterici,  118 
Diocletian,  era  of — ,  18 
Dioscorides,  28,  67,  74 n.,  98 
Dissection,    36-37.      See    also    Ana- 
tomy 
Dragon's    Blood     {damuU-akhawayn)^ 

51-52 
Dropsy  {istisqd),  36,  43;  —  cured,  72-73, 

75-78 
Duban  the  physician,  25 
Duwdr  (Vertigo),  35 

Edessa,  21,  114 

Egypt,   14,  I7-I9>  30.  94-95,  97>  98. 

100-103,  109 
Egyptians,  9,  17-19,  22,  36,  94-95 
'Et<ra7W7?7,  58 

Elements,  the  Four  — ,  44,  116-117 
Elephantiasis,  43 
Ellis,  Mr  A.  G.  — ,  60  n. 


Empyrean      {-Falak-Atlas,      Falaku'l- 

Afldk),  118 
England,   Egyptian  students  first  sent 

to  —  in  1813,  94 
Epilepsy,  42 
Epistaxis,  43 

Ergot  {guriin-i-sunbul),  120 
Erysipelas,  43 

Escorial  library,  48,  61  n.,  114 
Ethe,  Dr  Hermann  — ,  60 
Evil  Eye  {^ Aynu! l-JCamdl^  the  "Eye  of 

Perfection"),  12,  42 
Evolution,  1 1 8-1 19 

Facial  paralysis,  43 

Abu'l-Fadlof  Sawa,  Mirza —  (physician 

and  writer,  xix),  36 
-Fdkhir,  -Kitdb —  (ascribed  to  -Razf),  48 
FalakuH-AJldk^    -Falak-Atlas    (Empy- 
rean), 118 
Fanakhusraw,     53.     See    'Adudu'd- 

Dawla 
-Farabi  (philosopher,  x),  58 
Faragut,    Fararius    (Jewish    translator 

from  Arabic  into  Latin,  xiii),  68 
-Faraj    ba^d    -Shidda    ("Relief   after 

Distress,"  Arabic  collection  of  stories 

by  -Tamikhi,  x),  50,  73-78 
Abu'l-Faraj  Gregorius.    See  Bar  He- 

braeus 
Farhang-i-Ndsiri  (Persian  lexicon,  xix), 

78  n. 
Ears  (Pars,  Persis  proper),  107 
Abu'l-Fath  (Arab  artisan,  xii),  71 
Fees  earned  by  Arab  physicians,  57 
Fennel-flower  {Nigella  saliva),  12 
Fever  called  "  an  exhalation  from  Hell," 

12  ;  —  described  in  verse  by  -Mutan- 

abbi,    30-31;    varieties   of  — ,    43; 

clinical  notes  on  a  case  of  —  by 

-Rdzi,  51-53 
Fihrist  ("Index"  of  Arabian  sciences, 

x),  3, 6,  15,  20,  25,  26,  37,  38,  46,  49, 

54 
Firdawsi  (Persian  poet,  xi),  79 
Firdawsu'l-Hikmat  ("  Paradise  of  Wis- 
dom," by  'All  ibn  Rabban-Tabari, 
ix),  34,  38-44,  66,  116-117 
FitzGerald,  Edward  — ,  60-61 


Index 


131 


Flagellation,  therapeutic  — ,78 

Folia  Indica,  or  Malabathrum  (sddhaj-i- 

hindi),  108 
Fonahn    {Zur   Quellenkunde  der  Per- 

sischen  Medizin),  92,  99,  107 
Foulques  of  Anjou,  Count  — ,71 
"Four     Discourses."      See     Chahar 

Maqala 
Four  Elements,  —  Natures,  44.    See 

under  Elements  and  Natures 
France,  Egyptian  medical  students  in 

— '  94 
Franks,  69-72.    See  also  Crusaders 
"Frogs'    coat"    or    "wool"    {Jdma-i- 

gkuk,   Pashfn-i-Wazagk,  Jul-i-Waz- 

agh,  a  kind  of  water-weed  called  in 

Arabic  tuhlub),  74  and  n. 

Galen  (Jalinus),  14,  21,  25,  28,  33,  39, 

55,  63,  68,  81,  85  n.,  91,  104,  114. 

See  also  Simon,  Max  — 
Gangrene,  43 

Garrison  {History  of  Medicine),  3 
Geber.    See  Jabir  fbn  Hayydn 
Gerard  of  Cremona  (xii),  61,  68,  98 
Ghassan,  10 

Ghatafar  (quarter  of  Samarqand),  88 
Umm  Ghaylan  (daughter  of  the  Arabic 

poet  Jarfr),  17 
Ghazan    (Mongol    Il-Khan    of   Persia, 

xiii-xiv),  103 
Ghazna,  59,  84 

G'lhhoTi' s,  Decline  and  Fall,  ed.  Bury,  18 
de  Goeje,  Professor  — ,  1 1 7  n. 
"  Golden  Age  "  of  Arabian  civilization 

(A.D.  750-85Q),  5,  6,  9,  33,  66,  91 
Goldziher,  Professor  Ignaz  — ,  7 
Gotha  library,  54,  61  n. 
Gout,  43,  48 
Greece,  98 
Greek  learning,  2,  3,  5-6,  9,  15,  17-19, 

21,  22,  24,  27,  28,  30,  65,  67-68,  112- 

113 
Greenhill  (English  translation  of  -R^zi's 

de  Pestikntid),  47 
Guillaume  de  Bures,  70 
Gunde  Shapiir.   See  Jundi  Sabdr 
Gurgan.   See  Jurjan 
Ci^sh-Kh-Arak  (ear-wig),  79 


Habbaba  (beloved  of  Yazid  ibn  'Abdu'l- 

Malik),  30 
Hajjaj  ibn  Yusuf  (vii),  16 
Hajji  Khalffa  (Turkish  bibliographer, 

xvii),  3 
Abu'l-Hakam   (Christian  physician   of 

Umayyad  period,  vii),  16 
Hakim  (applied  both  to  the  physician 

and  the  metaphysician),  5 
Halila  (myrobolan),  87 
"Haly    Abbas."      See    'Alf    Ibnu'l- 

'Abbds-MajUsi 
Hamadan,  59,  103,  107 
-Harith   ibn   Kalada   (Arab   physician 

contemporary  with  the  Prophet),  10, 

II  and  n.,  12 
Abu'l-Harith,  8.   See  Asad  ibn  Jani 
Harran  (Charrae),  27,  40 
Hanlnu'r-Rashid  (ix),  5,  31,  57 
Hasan-i-Talaqani,    Mfrza    — ,    entitled 

Adib  (Persian  writer,  xix),  36 
-Hdwi  of  -Razf   (known   to  medieval 

Europe  as  the  "Continens"),  47,  48- 

53,  55-56,  66-67,  68,  92,  113-114 
Hazdr-pdy  (millipede),  79 
Headache,  4  ("soda,"  i.e.  sudd'-),  12, 

35;    {shaqiqa  "migraine,"  and  san- 

warta),  42 
Hebrews,  2.   See  Jews 
Heliopolis,  94 

Hellenopolis,  27.    See  Harran 
Herba  Lentis  Palustris,  74  n. 
Hiccough  {fuwdq),  43 
Hilla,  104 
Hippocrates  {Buqrdt),  ^,  21,  25,  28,  33, 

39>  47,  55,  63,  68,  81,  91 
Hira,  10,  24 
Homer,  24 
Horn,  Dr  Paul  — ,  93 
Hospital,  regular  attendance  at  —  re- 
commended by  'All  ibnu'l- 'Abbas,  56. 
See  also  Bimaristan 
Hubaysh  (pupil  of  Hunayn  ibn  Ishaq, 

q.v.),  16 
Humours,  the  four  —  {-Akkldt-arba^a), 

119-122 
Hunayn  ibn  Ishaq  ("Johannitius,"  trans- 
lator   from    Greek    into    Syriac    or 
Arabic),  24-26,  39 


132 


Arabian  Medicine 


Abu'l-Husn    (owner   of    the   slave-girl 

Tawaddud),  31 
Hyrcania,  85,  98.    See  Jurjdn 
Hyrtl,    Dr    —    i^Das    Arabische    und 

Hebrdische  in  der  Anatomie),  34 

l&dptirira  (Yathrib,  -Madfna),  9 
Ibrahim  ibn  Thdbit  ibn  Qurra  (ix-x),  27 
Ab\i  Ibrahim  {kunya)^  8 
"Ilixi"  (Latin   corruption  of  al-Hshq^ 

"love"),    85.     See   also   Alhasch, 

supra 
India,  21,  105,  109 
India  Office  Library,  93 
Indian  science,  2,  9,  39,  42,  65 
Inoculation  for  small-pox,  94 
Abu  'Isa  {kunya),  8 
'Isa  ibn  Hakam  (medical  writer,  vii),  16 
*Isa   ibn    Shahla   (pupil   of  Jurjis   ibn 

Bukht-YishuS  viii),  23 
'Isa  ibn  Yahya  (pupil  of  Hunayn),  25 
Isfandiyar  (legendary  Persian  hero),  11 
Ishaq  ibn  Hunayn,  54 
Isma'il  ibn  'Abbad,  entitled  Sdhib,  39; 

Sayyid  Zaynu'd-Din  —  of  Jurjan  (xii, 

author  of  the  Dhakhira-i-Khwdra- 

zmshahf,  q.v.),  81,  87,  98,  99 
Isma'ili  sect,  58,  115 
Istisqd  (dropsy),  36 
Italy,  Egyptian  students  in  —  in  181 3 

and  1816,  94 

Jabir  ibn  Hayyan  ("Geber"),  15.  See 
also  Alchemy 

Jacobite  Christians,  17 
Jdhiliyyat   (pagan   days   of  the  Arabs 
before  Islam),   9.     See  also  Arabs, 
character  of  primitive  — 

-Jahiz  (author  of  Kitdbu' l-Bukhald),  7 

Jaldlu'd-Din  Rumi  (Persian  mystical 
poet,  xiii),  87;  —  (son  of  "Rashid 
the  physician  "  and  governor  of  Asia 
Minor,  xiii-xiv),  105 

Jalap  ijulldb),  41 

/dma-i-ghtik  (water-weed),  74 

J^mi  (Persian  poet,  xv),  84,  89 

-Jdmi''  (by  -Razi),  48 

Jamna  (river  in  India),  105 

Jarfr  (Arab  poet  of  Umayyad  period),  1 7 


Jawdmi^u' l-Hikdydt  (Persian  collection 
of  stories  by  Muhammad  'Awfi,  xiii), 
78-79 
Ibnu'l-Jazzar  (physician  of  Qayruwan), 

97 

Jerusalem  captured  by  Crusaders,  69 

Jews  as  contributors  to  Muslim  learning, 
2,  7,  8,  38,  66 

Jibri'fl  ibn  Bukht-Yishu'  (d.  830),  23, 
57;  —  ibn  'Ubaydu'llah,  of  the  same 
family  (d.  1006),  23 

Johannitius.   See  Hunayn 

John  the  Grammarian  {-Nakwi,  Philo- 
ponus,  vi  or  vii) ,  17-18;  —  of  Damas- 
cus (called  Chrysorrhoas,  vii),  15 

Jolly,  Professor  — ,  93 

/ubdl  (hypothetical  word  to  denote 
mountain-sickness),  36 

/udkdm  (elephantiasis),  35 

Jul-i-Wazagh  ("frogs'  cloth,"  a  kind  of 
water- weed),  74  n. 

Ibn  Juljul  (Spanish  physician,  x),  97 

Julldb  (jalap),  41 

Jundi  Sabur  or  Shapur  (Gunde  Shapur, 
the  great  medical  school  of  Sasanian 
and  early  Muslim  times),  8,  ii,  19-24, 

34.  54.  76,  114 

Jurjan  (Gurg^n,  Hyrcania),  59, 84, 87, 98 
Jurjis  ibn  Bukht-Yishu',  23-4 
Justinian,  the  Emperor  — ,  1 1 

■Kdfi  (of  -R^i),  48 

Kalila  and  Dimna,  Book  of — ,  21 

Kdmilu^s-Sind'at  (or  -Kitab-Maliki, 

"Liber    Regius,"    of   'AH    ibnu'l- 

'Abbds-Majdsi,  q.v.),   49  n.,  109, 

123-124 
"Karabitus"    (misreading    for   Farrd- 

niiis,  ippeviTLS,  frensy),  113 
Ibn  Khaldun  (historian,  xiv),  7,  13-14, 

96 
Khalid    ibn    Yazid    (Umayyad    prince 

devoted  to  Alchemy,  vii),  15,  19 
Ibn  Khallik^n  (biographer,  xiii),  100 
-Khitat  (of  -Maqrizi,  xv),  101-102 
Khiva  (Khwarazm),  59,  81,  98 
Khuffi-i-'AWi  (Manual   of  Medicine 

by   Zaynu'd-Din    Isma'il   of  Jurjan, 

xii),  99 


Index 


133 


Khumdr  (wine-headache),  36 

Khurasan,  45,  75,  84 

Khusraw  (Chosroes,  Kisra)  Anushar- 
w^n  or  Nushirwan  (Sasanian  king  of 
Persia,  vi),  11,  20,  21 

Khuzistan,  19 

Khwarazm,  59,  81,  98 

King's  College,  Cambridge,  48 

Kisrd  ("Chosroes"),  11,  20.  See 
Khusraw 

Kitab  -Bukhald  ("Book  of  Misers,"  by 
-Jahiz),  7;  —  -Faraj  ba^d  -Shidda 
("Relief  after    Distress,"    by   -Tan- 

ukhi),  50,  73-78; Hawi.^.z;.;  — 

•Mabda  waH-Ma^dd  (by  Avicenna, 
xi),  84;  —  -Maliki  (the  "Liber 
Regius"  of  'All  ibnu'l-'Abbas-Ma- 
jiisi,  x),  47,  49  n.,  53-57,  d^,  92, 
120;  see  also  Kamilu's-Sina'at, 
supra;  —  -Mansuri  (by  -Razf,  x), 
45,  48,  56;  —  -Tanbih  wd'l-Ishrdf 
(Mas'udf),  117  and  n. 

de  Koning,  Dr  P.  — ,  3,  47,  55,  122 

Krehl,  L.  — ,  18 

von  Kremer,  Baron  Alfred  — ,  14,  57, 
96  n. 

Kiifa,  76 

Kunndsh  (of 'Isa  ibn  Hakam),  16 

Lagarde,  7 

Lahore,  Oriental  College,  104 
Lane,  Edward  — ,  32,  loi  n.,  102 
LatdHf-i-Rashidlyya  (medical  work  by 

Mahmud  ibn  Ilyas,  xiv),  107 
Latin  translations  from  Arabic,  2,  4,  6, 

15,  26-27,  28,  34,  95,  113 
"  Latino- Barbari,"  4,   24,   32,  35,   dd^ 

113 

Laurel -spurge,  77 

Layard,  19  n. 

Lebanon,  69 

Leclerc,  Dr  L.  —  {Histoire  de  laMidecine 

Arabe),  3,  11,  17,  18,  26,  72,  95,  98 
Leech  swallowed,  74-75 
Zie;««a  (water- weed),  74  n. 
Lepers  (segregated  by  -Walfd  in  a.d. 

707),  16-17 
Leprosy,  12,  43 
Leyden,  6r  n. 


"  Liber  Almansoris,"  45,  48,  75.  See 
also  -Kitab-Mansuri 

"  Liber  Regius."  See  Kamilu's- 
Sina'at  and  -Kitab-Maliki 

Lippert,  Dr  Julius  — ,  100.  See  also 
-Qifti  (author  of  the  Tdrikhu'l- 
Hukamd) 

Litharge  (murddsang),  120 

Livre  d^  Avertisseme7tt{Kitdbu^t-  Tanbih 
of -Mas'udi),  117  and  n. 

Locusts  as  food,  77-78,  81 

Love  as  a  malady,  85-88 

Lupus,  43 

Lyons,  53,  109 

-Ma'arri,  Abu'l-'Ala  —  (Arabic  poet, 

xi),  95-96 

Macnaghten  (ed.  oi  A  If  Lay  la  or  "Ara- 
bian Nights"),  32  n. 

Mddharyun  or  Mdzaryun  (Mezereon, 
Daphne  oleoides),  77-78 

-Madfna  (the  ancient  Yathrib),  4,  9 

Madira  (a  kind  of  broth),  75 

Madkhal  (-Razi's  "  Introduction"  to  the 
Practice  of  Medicine,  x),  48 

Magian  (or  Zoroastrian,  q.v?\,  2,  53 

Ibn  Mahdi  (physician,  xiv),  107 

Abu  Mahir  Musa  ibn  Sayyar  (teacher  of 
'All  ibnu'l-'Abbas-Majiisi,  x),  53-54 

Mahmiid,  Sultan  —  of  Ghazna  (x-xi), 
59,  84;  —  ibn  Ilyas  (physician,  xiv), 
105,  107 

Maimonides  (Musa  ibn  Maymun,  xii),  97 

Majlis-i-Sihhat  ("  Council  of  Health  "  at 
Tihran,  xix),  93 

Majma^iiU-Fusahd  (anthology  of  Per- 
sian poets,  xix),  61 

-Majusi  ("Haly  Abbas,"  physician,  x). 
See  'All  ibnu'l- 'Abbas  — 

Makhzanti' l-Asrdr  (Persian  poem  by 
Nizami  of  Ganja,  xii),  89-90 

Makhzum  (Arab  tribe),  16 

Malabathi-um  {sddhaj-i-hindl),  108 

Malaga,  98 

-Ma'mun  ('Abbasid  Caliph,  ix),  5 

Manchu  (writing),  22 

Manes  (Mani)  the  heresiarch  (iv),  20 

Manna,  12 

-Mansiir  ('Abbasid  Caliph,  viii),  5,  23; 


134 


Arabian  Medicine 


(John  of  Damascus  so  named),  15; 

Qala'un   -Malik    —  (xiii),    101-102 ; 

—  ibn  Ishaq  ibn  Ahmad  (governor  of 

Ray  and  patron  of  -Razf,  x),  45,  75  n., 

82  ;    —    ibn    Muhammad    (Persian 

anatomist,  xiv),  93 
Abu  Mansiir  Muwaffaq  of  Herat  (author 

of  oldest  Persian  Materia  Medica,  x) ,  93 
Maqdlafi  KhalqCl-Insdn  (Arabic  work 

on  Embryology,  etc.,   by  Sa'fd  ibn 

Hibatu'Uah,  xi),  125 
-Maqrfzi    (author    of    -Khitat,    g.v.), 

101-102 
Maragha  (in  N.W.  Persia),  101 
Mara'il  (Syriac  name),  8 
Margoliouth,  Professor  D.  S.  — ,  49,  100 
Mdristdn  (for  Btmdristdn,  hospital),  23, 

46,  101-102 
Ibn   Masawayh,   Yuhann£  —  ("  Mes- 

sues,"  ix),  8,  24,  25,  37,  39 
-Mas'udi   (Arab   geographer    and   his- 
torian, x),  117 
Mathnawi  (Persian  poem,  xiv),  87-88 
Mazdayasnian  (Zoroastrian) ,  22 
Mazyar  (Persian  patriot  and  rebel,  ix),  38 
Measles  (-Razi  on  — ),  47 
Mecca,  4 

Melancholia,  85,  88-89 
Merv,  37,  83,  88  n. 
Mesopotamia,  97 
"Messues,"  8.     See  Ibn  Masawayh, 

supra 
Mezereon   {Daphne    oleoides),    77   and 

78n. 
Michael  de  Capella,  53 
Migraine  (hemicrania,  shaqtqa),  12,  35 
Millipede  {hazdr-pdy),  79 
Missing  link,  1 18-119 
Mizdj {^\.  Amzija).  See  "  Complexions" 
Mongols  (Tatars,  Tartars),  4,  6,  91,  100, 

loi,  103;  letters  of  the  — ,  22 
Monte  Casino,  68 
Moore,  Sir  Norman  — ,  vii,  i,  125 
Mu^allim-i-thdni  (the  "Second  Great 

Teacher"),  title  of  Avicenna,  q.v. 
Mu'^wiya  (Umayyad  Caliph,  vii),  15,  16 
Mubadh  (Zoroastrian  priest),  79 
Mughtasila  (Sabaeans,  so-called  "Chris- 
tians of  St  John  the  Baptist "),  27 


Muhammad  the  Prophet  (vi-vii),  4,  9, 
II,  21;  —  ibn  -Nili  (xiv),  104;  — 
Abarquhi  (xiv),  104 ;  —  'AH  (Khedive 
of  Egypt),  94;  Shaykh  —  Mahdi 
(xix),  36;  Mfrza  —  ibn  'Abdu'l- 
Wahhdb  (xix-xx),  11  n.,  80,  84;  — 
Shaft'  (Professor  at  Oriental  College, 
Lahore),  104 
Multan,  105 

-Muluki,  -Kitdb  —  (by  -Razf,  not  to  be 
confounded  with  al-KitdbuU-Maliki, 
the   "Liber  Regius"  of  'All  ibnu'l 
-•Abbas-Majiisf),  48 
Munaytira,  Castle  of —  in  Syria,  69 
Munich  Library,  48,  114 
-Muqtadi  ('Abb^sid  Caliph,  xi),  125 
-Muqtadir  ('Abbasid  Caliph,  x),  40 
Musa  ibn  Maymun,  97.    See  Maimo- 

nides 
Mustashfd  (hospital),  102 
Mutakharrij  (graduate),  40 
-Mutanabbf  (Arabic  poet,  x),  30-31 
-Mu'tasim  ('Abbasid  Caliph,  ix),  37 
-Mutawakkil  ('Abbasid  Caliph,  ix),  38, 

66 
-MuHazila  (sect),  5 
Myrobolan  (halila),  87 

Nadr  ibn  -Harith  (vii),  1 1  and  n. 
-Nahdatu^l-akhira  (the  "latest  revival" 

of  learning  in  the  East),  94  and  n. 
Ndma-i-Ddttishwardn  (the    "  Book  of 

Learned  Men,"  xix),  36 
Nasiru'd-Dfn  Shah  (xix),  36,  93 
Nasnds  (a  wild  man,  the  missing  link 

between  apes  and  men),  119 
Natures,   the  Four  —  {-fabd'i^-arba'), 

116 
Nawddir  (quaint  and  rare  anecdotes), 

73 
"Neguegidi"     (Latin     corruption     of 

-nawdjidh),  34 
Neo-Piatonists,  11,  21 
Nestorian  Christians,  21,  22 
Neuburger,  Dr  Max  — ,  vi,  3,  47,  66 
Nigella  sativa  (fennel-flower),  1 2 
Nightmare,  42 
Nizami  of  Ganja  (Persian  poet,  author 

of  the  Khamsa  or  "Five  Treasures," 


Index 


135 


xii),  89-90; i-*Arudi  of  Samarqand 

(author  of  the  Chahdr  Maqalaj^.z'.), 

50.  63,  79 
Noldeke,  Professor  Th.  — ,  ■20  n.,  2311. 
"  Nose-death,"  125 

"Nuaged,"34.See"Neguegidi,"i'«/ra 
Nubia,  apes  from  — ,  37 
Nilh  ibn  Mansiir  (Samanid  king,  a.d. 

976-997),  58 
"Number  of  All  Things"  {'Adadu  kulli 

shay'),  32 
Numbers,  mystical  significance  of  — , 

32,  115 

Nur-i-''  Uthmdniyya  Library  (Constanti- 
nople), 107 

Nuru'd-Din,  102 

Oils,  aromatic  vegetable  — ,  104-105, 

107,  io8 
Ophthalmia,  12 
Oribasius,  28,  33,  55 
Oxus  {Amu,  J'ayhun),  82,  83,  105 
Oxymel  {sirkangaMn),  41,  87 

Pagel,  3,  ()(> 

Pahlawi  inscriptions,  20 

Pain,  noun  of—,  4,  5,  35 

Palpitation,  42 

"Paradise  of  Wisdom."    See  Firdaw- 

su'1-Hikmat,  supra 
Paralysis,  43 
Paris,  94 

Paris,  Matthew  —  (xiii),  6 
Pashm-i-ghuk  ("frogs'  wool,"  a  kind  of 

water- weed),  74 
Paul  of  Aegina,  28,  33,  55 
Persian  influences  on,  and  contributions 

to,  "Arabian"  learning,  2,  5,  7,  9,  14, 

65  ;  —  Empire,  10 
Peste,  Pestihntid,  de  —  (by  -Razi),  47 
Pestilence,  12 
Petrograd,  48 

0aA:6s  [Ilerba  Lentis  Palustris),  74  n. 
Phlebotomy,  41,  43 
<f>p€viTis,  113 
Plague,  43 
Playfair,  Ernest  —  (translator  of  Prof. 

Max  Neuburger's  Gesck.  d.  Medizin), 

47  n. 


Pleurisy,  12,  43,  56,  78 

Pocock's    ed.    of   the    Mukhtasaru'd- 

Z'«z£>a/ of  Bar  Hebraeus,  loi 
Pognon,  H.  —  {Une  Version  Syriaque 

des    Aphorismes    d' Hippocrate) ,    21, 

and  n. ,  28-29 
Poison,  duel  by  — ,  90;  varieties  of — , 

III 
Polak,  Dr  — ,  93 
Press  and  Poetry  of  Modern  Persia,  by 

E.  G.  Browne,  94  n. 
Prognostics,  26 
Prolegomena    {-Muqaddama)    of    Ibn 

Khaldun,  7 
"Prophetic  Medicine,"  12-13 
Psychotherapeusis,  81-84 
Ptolemy,  118 

Pulse  (nabd),  42,  43,  60,  85-88 
Pyelitis,  53 

Qabus  ibn  Washmgir  (xi),  59 

Qala'iin  (xiii),  loi 

Qdnun  (of  Avicenna),  4,  13,  27,  34,  47, 

54,  61-63,  66,  78  n.,  81,  85,  89,  92, 

98,  109,  113,  122,  123 
^^'«2^w^^a  (abridgment  of  above),  13 
Qaren  (Persian  noble  house),  38 
Abu'l-Qasim,  97.    See  Zahrawi 
Qasru'l-'Aynl  hospital  (Cairo),  94 
Qayruwan,  97,  106 
-Qiftl  (Jam^u'd-Din  Abu'l-Hasan  'All 

ibn   Yiisuf  — ,   xiii,    author   of    the 

TarikhuU-Hukanid),  3,  10,  17,   18, 

23  n.,  24,  37,  38,  40,  46,  48,  53,  54, 

57,  60,  100 
Qinnasrln,  108 
Quatremere,     Etiehne    —    {Hist,    des 

Mongols),  103 
Quicksilver  employed  by  -Razi  in  a  case 

of  intussusception,  78 
Qur'dn,  7,11, 12, 13,  32,  58, 106, 108, 115 
Qusta  ibn  Luq^  (of  Baalbek,  d.  a.d. 

923)*  27 
Qutbu'd-Dln  of  Shir^  (xiv),  105 

Rabban  (."  our  teacher,"  "  our  master"), 

37-38 
Rab'-i-Rashidi  (quarter  of  Tabriz,  xiv), 

103,  104,  106,  108-109 


136 


Arabian  Medicine 


Ragha  (ancient  name  of  Ray),  44 

Rashidabad  (quarter  of  Tabriz),  109 

Rashidu'd-Din  Fadlu'llah  ("Rashid 
the  Physician,"  xiii-xiv),  103-109 ;  — 
Abu  Haliqa,  85  n. 

Ravvlinson,  Sir  H.  R.  — ,  19  n. 

Ray  (Ragha  of  the  Avesta,  situated 
near  to  the  modern  Tihran),  44,  45, 
75  n. 

-Razi,  Abu  Bakr  Muhammad  ibn  Zak- 
ariyya  of  Ray,  hence  called  -Razl 
(Rhazes  of  medieval  Europe,  x),  32, 
38,  44-53.  55.  62,  66,  67,  68,  74-75, 
78,  82-84,  91,  92,  98,  113-114 

"Rectification"  {Isldh)  of  the  Qdnun 
of  Avicenna  denounced,  63 

Renascence,  2-3 

Rhazes.    See  -Razi,  supra 

Rheumatism,  43,  48,  81,  82-84 

Rieu,  Dr  Ch.  — ,  60  n. 

Rocco  =  Arabic  Rukka,  65  n. 

Roman  Empire,  10 

Ross,  Sir  E.  Denison  — ,114 

Rudaba  (mother  of  Rustam),  79 

Rufus  of  Ephesus,  28,  33 

Ibn  Rushd  ("Averroes"),  97 

Rustam,  11,  79 

Sabaeans,  27,  66 

Sa'du'd-Din  (governor  in  Asia  Minor, 

xiv),  108 
-Sahih   (Collection    of    Traditions)    of 

-Bukhari,  12 
Sahl,  called  Rabban  (father  of  'Ali  ibn 

Rabban  of  Tabaristdn,  q.v),  37 
Sa'id,  the  Q^di  — ,  44 
Sa'id  ibn  Hibatu'llah,  Abu'l-Hasan  — 

(Court-physician  to  the  Caliph  -Muq- 

tadf,  xi),  125 
St  Bartholomew's  Hospital,  125 
Saladdin,  97,  102 
Salerno,  68 

Salfbd  (Syrian  name),  8 
Sam^nid  dynasty,  58,  84 
Samarqand,  9,  79,  88,  107 
Sanwarta  (a   Syriac  vi^ord   of  Persian 

origin,  meaning  primarily  a  helmet, 

and  then  a  headache  involving  the 

whole  head),  35 


Sar-i-Pul  ("Bridge-end"  in  Samar- 
qand), 88 
Sarbat,  or  Sarnab  (name  of  Indian 
physician,  supposed  contemporary  of 
Aristotle),  79 
Sdsanian  dynasty  (iii-vii),  14,  19,  22. 
See  also  Khusraw  Anxisharwdn, 
Jundi  Sabiir,  etc. 

Schindler,  Sir  Albert  Houtum ,  J03 

Schlimmer's  Termmologie  Midico-Phar- 

maceutique  etc.,  77,  93-^94 
Sciatica,  43 

Scorpions,  oil  of  — ,  105 
Scot,  Michael  — ,  98 
Scrofula,  43 

Seligmann,  Dr  F.  R.  — ,  93 
Sensus  communis  {^-hiss  -mushtarik),  123 
Ibn  Serapion,  Yuhann^  — ,55 
Sergius  of  Ra'su'l-'Ayn  (d.  a.d.  536),  21 
Seville,  97,  107 
Shahabdd  (village  now  occupying  site  of 

Jundf  Sabiir),  19 
Shdh-ndma  of  Firdawsi  (xi),  79 
Shahraziiri  (author  of  a  History  of  Philo- 
sophers), 100 
Shamsu'd-Dawla  of  Hamadan,  Amir  — 

(patron  of  Avicenna),  59 
Shapiir  I  (iii),  19-20;  —  II  (iv),  20-21 
Shaqiqa  (migraine),  35 
Shattu'l-'Arab,  27 
-Shaykh-RaHs  ("the    Chief  Master"), 

57.   See  Avicenna 
Shayzar  (in  Syria),  71,  72 
Shir^z,  107 
Shock,  43 
Silsilatu'dh-Dhahab    (the    "Chain    of 

Gold,"  poem  by  Jami,  xv),  84,  89 
Simon,  Dr  Max  — ,  3,  28,  114,  122 
Sinan  ibn  Thabit  ibn  Qurra,  27,  40-41 
Sirkangabin  (oxymel),  41,  87 
de  Slane,  Baron  McGuckin  —  (trans- 
lation of  Ibn  KJiallikan's  biographies), 
7,  100 
Small-pox,  43,  47,  94 
"Soda"  (Latin  transcription  of  Sudd\ 

headache),  4,  35 
Sontheimer,  98 
Spain,  9,  14,  97-98 
Spasm,  43 


Index 


"^Zl 


Spheres,  the  twelve  — ,  ii8 

Spirits,  the  three  —  (Natural,  Animal 

and  Psychical),  124,  125 
Spurge-flax  (Mezereon),  77 
Steinschneider,  Dr  Moritz  — ,  47,  68  n. 
Stephen  the  Philosopher,  53 
Sroixeta  {ustuqussdt,  elements),  121 
Stone,  -Razi  on  — ,  47 
Strassburg,  72 
Styptic,  ashes  of  burnt  matting  used  as 

— ,  12 
Sudhoff,  Dr  Karl  — ,  93 
Sydenham  Society,  47 
Syria,  14,  27,  69,  loi,  104,  109 
Syriac  language,  6,  26,  28,  33,  35,  95, 

10 1 ;  —  Book  of  Medicines  (ed.  and 

transl.  by  Dr  E.  Wallis  Budge),  22 
Syrian    contributions    to    "Arabian" 

Science,  2,  7,  21-22,  28-29,  55»  94 
Syro-Persian  technical  terms,  34-35 

-Tabarf  (Arab  historian),  16,  38-39 
Tabarist^n,  37,  38,  48 
Tabriz,  94,  103,  104,  106,  107,  108 
"Tacuini  Sanitatis,"  72.    See  Taqwl- 

mu's-Sihha 
Tafhim    (manual    of    Astronomy    by 

-Bfrdni,  xi),  6 
Tamfm,  Shaykh  Abu'1-Wafa  — ,  71 
-Tanukhf  (author  of  -Faraj  ba^da  *sh- 

Shidda,  x),  50,  73,  78 
Taqwimu' s-Sikha  (by  Ibn  ButMn,   d. 

A.D.  1063),  72 
Tartars  (more  correctly  Tatars),  4,  6. 

See  Mongols 
Tawaddud  the  slave-girl,  31-32 
Terminology,  evolution  of  Arabic  medi- 
cal — ,  33-36 
Terra  sigillata  (-//«  -makhtutn),  51,  52, 

107 
Tetanus,  42,  43 
Thabit  ibn  Qurra  (ix),  27;  —  (physician 

to  Usama's  uncle),  69-70 
Theodorus,  Theodosius,  16,  20 
"Thesaurus."  See  Dhaklra-i-Khwa- 

razmshahf 
Tholozon,  Dr  — ,  93 
Tibb  -NaM  (the  "Prophet's  Medicine"), 

11-14;  —  -Yundni  ("Greek  Medi- 


cine"),  62,    93; Rukka   ("Old 

Wives'  Medicine"),  65 
Tigris  {Dijld),  37 
Tihrdn,  36,  44,  93,  94 
Tinnitus,  42 

Toledo  {Tulaytuld)^  97>  98 
Torpor,  42 

Translator's  methods,  26,  28-29,  95 
Transoxiana  ( il/<z  a/ara'a '«-i?V<3!^r)  ,82 ,84 
Trinity,  doctrine  of  the  — ,  1 7 
Tripoli  (in  Africa),  106 
Tukfatu' l-Hukamd   (by   Mahmud    ibn 

Wyis,  xiv),  107 
Tuhlub  (a  kind  of  water- weed),  74 
Tunis,  68,  97,  106,  107 
Turkish  influence  on  Muslim  theology, 

5 ;    —   terminology  borrowed  from 

Arabic,  36 

Abu  'Ubayd  -Juzjanf  (disciple  and  bio- 
grapher of  Avicenna,  xi),  58-59 

*Umar  ibn  Yahya  -*Alawi,  Abu  *Ali  — , 
76;  —  -i-Khayy^m  (xi-xii),  60 

Umayyad  Caliphs,  9,  14-17,  19 

Urdu  language,  36,  98 

Urine  {bawl),  42,  43,  51-53 

Usamaibn  Munqidh  (Syrian  aw /r,  xii), 

69-73 

Ibn  Abi  Usaybi'a  (author  of  the  Taba- 
gdtu'l'Atibbd,  or  *•  Classes  of  Physi- 
cians," xiii),  3,  10,  II,  i6n.,  37,  44 n., 
45>  46,  50.  54.  59n.,  75".,  85  n,  100, 
125  n. 
Ustuqussdt  {(TTOixeta,  elements),  121 
Ibn  Uthal  (physician  to  Mu'^wiya,  vii), 

Uyghur  script,  22 

Vacuum  and  Plenum  {Khald  wa  Mala), 

118 
Valerian,  the  Emperor  — ,  20 
Van  Vloten,  7  n. 
Veh-az-Andev  ("Better  than  Antioch"), 

20.   See  Jundi  Sabiir 
Vendtddd  (Avesta),  22,  44  n. 
Verdigris  [zangdr),  120 
Vertigo  {duwdr),  35)  4^ 
Vinegar    as   a   therapeutic   agent,    71, 

72-73 


138 


Arabian  Medicine 


Vipers,  therapeutic  use  of — ,  72-73,  81 
Virchow's  Archiv,  47  n.,  68  n. 
Virtues,  Natural  — ,  122-123 
Vital  Spirit,  123 
Vollers,  65  n. 

Ibnu'l-Wafid  ("  Aben  Guefit"),  97 
Walfd  (Umayyad  Caliph,  viii),  16 
Wasserlinde  (Arabic  Tuklub),  7411. 
Wenrich,  3 
Withington,  E.  T.  —  [Medical  History 

from  the  earliest  times),  3,  67 
Wright,  Dr  William  — ,  loi 
W^iistenfeld,   Ferdinand  —  (author   of 

Die  Academien  der  Araber  und  ihre 

Lehrer,     1837,    and    Geschichte    der 

Arabischen  Aerzte,  1840),  3 

Yddgdr  ( *'  the  Remembrancer, "a  manual 

of  Medicine  by  Zaynu'd-Din  Isma'fl 

of  Jurjan,  xii),  99 
Yahy^  -Nahwf  ("John the  Grammarian," 

"John  Philoponus,"  vi  orvii),  17-18, 

26 
Yaqut  (geographer  and  biographer,  xiii), 

38,  100 
Yathrib  ('Ici^piTrTra),  9.    See  -Madlna 
Yazfd    ibn    'Abdu'l-Malik    (Umayyad 

Caliph,  viii),  30 
Year  amongst  the  Persians,  by  E.  G. 

Browne,  123  n. 


Yuhannd.    See  Ibn  Mdsawayh,  Ibn 
Serapion 

Yusuf  the  physician,  24-25 

Abu  Za'bal  (site  of  first  modern  hospital 

at  Cairo),  94 
-Zahrawi,    Abu'l-Q^sim    —    (Moorish 

surgeon,     x,     known    to    medieval 

Europe  as  "Alsaharavius,"  *' Abulca- 

sis"  and  "  Albucasis"),  97 
Zahrun,  family  of — ,  27 
Abu  Zakariyya  (Christian  kunya),  8 
Zayd^n,  Jurji   —   (Syrian   writer  and 

publicist,  editor  of  -Hildl,  xix-xx), 

94.  95  n. 
Zaynab   (woman   oculist  in   Umayyad 

period),  16 
Zaynu'd-Dfn  Isma'fl  of  Jurjan,  Sayyid 

—  (Persian  physician,  xii),  98-100. 

See  also  Dhakhlra-i-Khwarazm- 

shahi 
Zhukovski,  Valentin  — ,  88  n. 
Zohab,  19  n. 
Zoroastrians,  22,  53,  54,  ^d,  79.    See 

also  Avesta,  Magian 
Ibn  Zuhr  of  Seville  (Moorish  physician, 

xii,   known  to  medieval   Europe  as 

Avenzoar,  q.v.),  97 
Zukdm  (catarrh),  35 
Zwemer,   Dr   (author    of  Arabia,    the 

Cradle  of  Isldm),  17,  65 


DATE  DUE 

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